A Lady trip

A Lady
Stephen Hyde
Thu 24 Sep 2009 11:30
Thursday 26th August 2009
Crew , Stephen and Aileen,
08.00 early breckfast, suffering from withdrawl symptoms after the Martin's departure. We had a few meetings with Soprimar
about a few items wcich needed attention, including , polishing up the hull and touching up the scratch marks, clean and antifoul the underside
and replace the gate valves on the hull, as the existing ones had totally siezed up. ( seems , from a lack of use,)
 
We ordered a taxi for friday morning at 04.30 , as we were flying back to cork from faro airport at 06.10 ........early
We had a meal ashore before going to the superbunk..........zz
 
 
Friday  27th Aug 2009
Crew :- stephen and Aileen
Got the early flight to cork, weather was miserable, but we had promised Margaret (How ) that we would certainly go to Ericks wedding, ever before we had our sailing plans finalised. The wedding was to be in Glandore the following friday.
A quick visit to the office by Stephen after lunch confirmed the the great Veronica was still on top of things there.
Paul was gone cycling, his new career,
Sarah and Paul, ( her still husband) cooked dinner for us in their house that night, lovely lovely, yum yum, and we all watched ( yet again ) the Arnaud
disc of photo's taken on board A Lady by the following contributors :-  Arnaud, Sarah, Rom, Stephen, Denis O'Sullivan, Lorna, well done Arnaud again ,
you did a great job,  Arnaud Disant is french ( as you see from the name ) he is married to a french lassey with one daughter, and they live and work in cork, Arnaud has his own I.T. buisness and services half of ireland , as far as we can see.
 
we had a good sleep in our own bed that night.....zzzzz
 
 
Saturday 28th Aug 2009
We were given a present of a weekend in Powerscourt by the children which we had to use or loose. we arrived around six o clock and had dinner in Gordan ramsey's that night. we were luckey to get in, recession me eye, well certainly not in Dublin.
 
 
Sunday 29th Aug 2009
Following a good breckfast and a lovely mass, we played a game of golf with Neill O Rielly, He took all the money, bought a pint and parted company as his mother in law was seriously ill.
Leah and Johnny joined us in the Hotel for dinner, we had a lovely evening and all parted company around 11.30, and retired to bed , wrecked, getting
too old for all this racing around, and were not finished yet. I decided that I would give up the drink for two weeks at least, and I did, which included the wedding.
 
Monday31th Aug 2009
England....... Stephen and Aileen left Powerscourt at 07.00 for Dublin Port, arrived at 08.00 hrs and boarded the ferry for HollyHead on our way to Stratford upon Avon. A little bit of buisness to attend in the area, Our fellow travellors renagued at the last minute, so we wound up going alone.
We booked into the hotel and went up town for a walk and a meal, most places were offering dinner for two at £9.50 in total, some even included a glass
of wine. makes our little country look like its still " rip off Ireland "  but we all still like the " THE OLD SOD "
 
 
Tuesday 1st September 2009
Aileen arranged a tour of stratford at 10.30. excellent, we visited all the SHAKESPHERE hot spots, by the way, he was a rascal , like all other poets,
writers, artists, and craft people in general, intelligent and alcholic,  LOVE THEM.
The guide gave us these wonderfull bit's... true or not, we will never know..
* To get access to King George of England you could only do so by talking to either one of his two mistress's ,, one of which was very heavy and the
other who was very thin, Hence the _expression_ "  through thick and thin "
* it also seemed around Shakesphere's time, it was customery to dig up grave's and burn the bones every 30 years or so to make way for new bodies.
these were known as " bone fires " later to become known as  BONFIRES.
 
Stratford upon avon is a must visit for anyone travelling to that region. We went to a russion play that night. called THE DRUNK, it was very good, basically
going over the history of Russia up to the collapse of communisim,
Back to the hotel and a little snack on the way.
good day..