Singing in the Rain

At the last minute we swapped a timeshare for a week in Ireland. We stayed in a 300 year old Abbey near Kilkenny. The Irish weather is wet; it rains every day but not all day. It rains hard and it drizzles. It's cloudy and then the sun peeps out but only for a few minutes. Then the wind blows and howls and the rain comes back. Everything is damp and soggy all the time. There must be more pubs per capita in Ireland than anywhere else on earth and it's probably because it's more cosy in a pub than out in the temperamental weather. The Irish may be the friendliest people in the world and you're likely to meet them in the pub. Charles spent the weekend with us. On the first night we went to a grungy pub called Eddie Murphy's in Thomastown to hear an ex Dire Straits guitarist,"Guitar George, he knows all the chords". Kilkenny has some amazing pubs and on Sunday night there was an amazing choice of live music. Over the course of the day and late into the night we went to 10 pubs, 8 with music. We visited Whiskey distilleries in Killbeggan, Tullamore and Jameson's near Cork. We went to Dublin and the Guinness Museum and the Jazz Festival in Cork. We saw a lot of green scenery and some stormy coastal vistas. Back in Kilkenny we spent the evenings seeing more live music almost every day.