no “madame–baby” wake-up call this morning (i guess mr charming realized that madame was already taking a shower when he called) but a bit of re-packing before breakfast as today we are relocating to tralee in county kerry. having learnt from yesterday’s breakfast i appear on the scene 15min early and order coffee (for me) and tea (for mrs d) along with my cooked breakfast — ms rough charme tries to force me to use the german breakfast menu but i stubbornly insists on using the original. i while away the time until coffee and tea arrive by reading the irish independent. at around 8:00 coffee, tea, and toast arrive, 5min later mrs d and we are all set to start breakfast…

…well, almost. when mrs d pours her cup of tea we are both a bit surprised at how strong it turns out to be. that surprise is nothing, though, compared to the surprise of mrs d when taking the first sip: she pulls a face, looks quite a bit startled, then takes a peek at the contents of her tea pot — and laughs: apparently the breakfast crew is under quite a bit of stress and mistakenly filled her tea pot with coffee and threw in a tea bag. our breakfast waitress is as surprised as we and quickly remedies the situation.

at 9:00 we are all packed and ready to go. first stop today is brigid’s well in kildare. the weather has improved (it’s no longer raining) and we take this first spell of dry weather not only to learn about brigid but also to learn about each other: introductions! brigid’s well is in the middle of fields just outside kildare and consists of an enclosed well at one end being “fed”1 by the original well at the other end of the garden. the front part is connected to the back part by a sequence of five stones (mini menhirs) each standing for a certain characteristic of st brigid. one sentence strikes a chord with me: “live in the here and now and all will be well”

kildare cathedral is next on the program and impresses me with its rather clean design and construction. not pompous at all.

a visit with sister mary of the centre for celtic spirituality concludes the morning: sister mary explains about the briget order, its history and, again, about celtic spirituality. rather interesting. and also located in an interesting loation: right in the middle of a residential area in kildare — which is, if you think about it, rather in-line with the credo of celtic spirituality: god around us, within us, above us, below us, in front of us, and behind us.

after a rather spiritually engaging morning we leave kildare and are on our way to the rock of cashel in tipperary. the trip from kildare to tipperary is not as long as it used to be (”it’s a long road to tipperary…”) due a new highway having just been opened. the weather has improved dramatically: the sun’s out and about, the rain of yesterday a faint memory.

at rock of cashel we have a late little lunch in granny’s kitchen then visit the castle.

it’s almost 19:00 when we reach our hotel for the next four nights, the ballygarry hotel in tralee — decidedly an improvement over the last one: very nice rooms, and dinner service actually delivers what’s written on the outside.

plus, it’s got working WLAN service

1. “fed” in quotes as we later notice that the water level of the original well at the end of the property is well below the pipe leading to the enclosed well at the front of the garden — a bit puzzling that. ↩