Waiting…Rain Drops Keep Fallin….Ireland

It’s lovely out there; now around 4 in the afternoon here in Ireland and am drying out from today’s road trip.  Didn’t travel as far as yesterday because it was raining cats and dogs and there were poodles (puddles) everywhere; one point thought I was going to lose my car.

It’s been a very very long time since I’ve driven on some roads like this; reminded me of childhood trips to Cape Breton from our home in PEI.  The roads, back then, were much like they are here in Ireland; barely enough room for two cars to pass, and some of the bends….God help you if you aren’t paying attention.  As for me, double trouble – ’cause they drive on the wrong side of the road over here and I still go to get in on the wrong (right) side of the vehicle.  The people here, though, are extremely polite and courteous…on and off the road.  Not certain they know I’m a tourista….but they patiently wait for me to make up my mind which way to go.

Yesterday’s trip was gorgeous, inland and up through some wee mountain roads lined on the side with tree branches swiping the side of the car, and me driving on the wrong side (right side here in Ireland) barely scraping by the oncoming traffic.  I never realized how much I relied on my ingrained driving abilities….and how much I don’t think about the other side of the car…the passenger side.  Twice yesterday my wheels grated up against a curb, and onto a sidewalk as I shinnied my way through a small one street village that had cars parked on both sides of the roadway, in places, leaving barely enough room for one vehicle to pass through.  I’d wait or the other car would wait….and thank the dear Lord, that when I failed to pay attention to the left side of the vehicle, it wasn’t one of those moments when I could have side-swiped a parked vehicle.

Aaah Ireland, my God it’s beautiful; rugged, weather beaten and beautiful.  A lot of yesterday’s photographing was taken while driving (now that’s scary isn’t it), and I’d hoped to make it to where my great great grandfather and generations since have lived.  I was doing really well, and made it all the way…to Tralee….and then got lost.  I left Cork at 10 in the morning and didn’t get back until 5 in the evening.  Had I not given up…I would have made Glengarriff within about 20 or 30 minutes of Tralee; but, I got lost on the roundabout of the roundabout…my goodness there’s nothing but roundabouts.

I guess roundabouts are the common thing in Europe.  I recall it’s very much like that in Sweden and France as well.  It’s just us North American’s with a propensity for red lights…and, I am wondering as I write this, is it also because drivers in Europe are more courteous?  If I waited at a roundabout in Canada or the USA…for someone to give me permission to enter…I might still be there.

That’s much like needing a “law” to be allowed to proceed, isn’t it?  Without the red light to tell you to stop and let me go through…would you?

Are we really that discourteous in North America?  Something to think about isn’t it?

Today I didn’t venture to the other side of the island and still managed to get lost on the way to kiss the Blarney Stone at Blarney Castle.  I’ll blame it on the heavy rain and leave it at that.  The photograph is a picture of a home taken along the mountain road on which I was driving.  Other than the downtown of cities, towns and villages…there isn’t any of this mass development of housing developments.  There are single family homes…plunked in the middle of a hillside or field or on the tip of a field that spreads out for miles like a feathering fern.  Even though it’s still cool and grey, the grass is green in many places (emerald green) and there are rows and rows and some times fields of blossoming yellow daffodils…some of them peeping out of barren craggy rocky hill sides.