Dublin - the tooth leprechaun

Top ‘o the mornin’ to you…

Now I know why the Irish say this. The sun doesn’t set until a ridiculously late time (around 9pm) and so the kids are awake until then…so nobody gets out of bed in the morning before 9am – so they are not even out of the house until the top (or late) part of the morning…

That’s my theory and I am sticking to it. The shops don’t even open until midday.

Yesterday afternoon we walked in the sunshine into the village and went to the pub for a drink…Shane had already been for a beer the day before (“Just to meet the locals” he insists) but it was the first Irish pub experience for the girls who were delighted with their pink lemonades…and my gin and tonic hit the spot nicely.

After dinner yesterday – at almost 8pm but in bright daylight, we took a walk along the river path that runs near our place and found a family of white swans (who were all named after Neve’s classmates) and a mother duck with 3 ducklings (of course called Eloise, Jessica and Naomi). Must remember to take pictures of them.

Today, however, was a very slow day - apart from Neve losing her 2nd ever tooth!! We are interested to see what the conversion rate from $AUD to Euro is for the tooth fairy (or will it be a tooth leprechaun)!! It was past 1pm before we were even organised enough to get out of the house. But having said that it was raining all morning so motivation to go out wasn’t high.

But we rallied and took the ‘dart’ into the city centre. We found a lovely pub/wine bar/café for lunch where I had a beautiful minestrone soup (probably more vegetables than I have had since leaving Australia!) and the kids demolished spaghetti bolognaise.

We then wandered to the edge of St Stephens Green (a big park that was too wet to explore) and around Grafton St - one of the main pedestrian streets (closed to traffic) in Dublin.

We found some new shoes for Eloise so she was very excited and is now determined to keep them clean – no more jumping in puddles for her (for now).

Eloise and her new shoes

Neve and her not-new shoes, perhaps the tooth fairy might leave enough money for her to get a new pair!!