Phew! Full Irish breakfast this morning and slung the last of our bits and pieces into our bags - off to Dublin for a day looking at the Christmas decorations and lights and decompressing before we launch off to Lisbon, Portugal tomorrow (for the very first time). It was a grey old day in Dublin which was perfect for our purposed because it was essentially dark by 4.30 pm - all the better for seeing the lovely Christmas lights. We were full from dinner and brea...

Our last three full days in the country passed in a blur of cleaning (darn those kitty cats walking across the freshly mopped floor!), packing (seriously - is our stuff swelling? It weighs more every time we move) and eating (we went to Hollywood for dinner - in fact, The Hollywood Inn, just down the road). First off though, we took our last touristy drive a very short distance up the road on Thursday - only 16 km to Baltinglass and its ruined abbey. More as a ...

We cannot believe that our last week in Ireland is upon us. Saturday dawned bright, fresh and freezing and we had one more drive we wanted to do in the Wicklow Mountains National Park. We took ourselves off with our hot lunch and coffee and started our exploration with another visit to the Monastic City of Glendalough. There is so much to see at this site that we actually missed a couple of the major monuments last time - so this time made sure we saw the Arch,...

The seasons changed this week. Not officially or anything, but they have. We've even had SNOW!!! One day we went for a scenic drive with sunshine and blue skies and the very next we had big fluffy white snow flakes drifting over the red-breasted robins as they nibbled the bird-feeder peanuts. Daytime 'highs' are now 5 and overnights are -1. Christmas is definitely just around the corner.Outings of note? Popped into a flea market in Blessington and found a pair of...

We've had a quiet week with lots of chilling out in the warmth of the central heating. Lots of gray days, bit of drizzle, very relaxed. It's about 1 km from the end of our track out to the road, so I've been doing a couple of 'there and backs' most days, keeping up our walking habit from the beach in Langkawi (and getting fitter for Lisbon larking about). Currently at 4 km - aiming to get to 6 km at a fair clip this coming week. The highlight of the week was o...