10 Questions About…

The last time Kate and I went to Howth, she was sick and it was bitterly cold. Today was beautiful! The sun shines for us today – as it did for Molly Bloom on 16 years before Bloomsday (June 16, 1904) in Ulysses by James Joyce. In her honor we climbed to Howth Head. Howth is the northern most point of the Dublin Bay; when the girls were little, we lived nearer the southern end of the Dublin Bay. So, Howth always feels like a rare treat. Climbing the hill is steep (by that I mean scary!); we climbed about as far as we thought we could. The journey was made more ominous when we saw a rat tail as big as a pencil until the rubbish bin at the start of the trail. But the views were worth it!

We started the day at the water. The long pier is closed but we walked the short pier. We saw a couple seals. You can long longer feed the seals (as we could when the girls were small) so they aren’t as active but it’s still thrill. And they still have very cute faces with very human expressions.

We came back for the Macnas Halloween parade. Macnas is an amazing theatrical group from Galway. Kate has seen them before and casually knows many of them. They puppetry is breathtaking. The passion in the musicians and dancers was infective. The crowd was huge and I was worried that all I’d be able to see if a sea of camera phones, which happened to some extend but Macnas has found a way to go higher. And it’s a shorter parade that goes farther, which means more people can enjoy it from the front or from the high point nearby. It’s hard not to feel the wonderment of it.

We ended the night at the Vintage Cocktail Club in Templebar. Kate is not a big drinker, but she does like cocktails. I’m mostly a cheap beer gal but I can tell you they make a mean French 75. The bar has a speakeasy feel with 1920s décor and jazz.