Train and Boats and Planes....From Jennings to Dublin

Our lovely blue sky with the scattered clouds totally clouded over as those of us remaining on the train from Euston Station in London pulled into Holyhead, Wales about one this afternoon on the first day of September.  Now we are aboard the Ulysses (of the Irish Ferry Lines) sitting in the James Joyce Balcony Lounge waiting to sail to Dublin.  Later we will go topside to watch some of the crossing.  The ferry is a large vehicle/passenger ferry and unless we take in a whole lot more people in the next few minutes, we will be nowhere near full.  Our crossing will take approximately three hours.

This morning we were at Euston and had collected our tickets from the electronic kiosk by 8:30.  We had an adventurous in a London taxi from the hotel to Euston. As we waited for the platform to be posted on the board, we listened to the announcements over the public address system.  One is loved was that the train to Midland had been cancelled due to a train fault.

 We boarded the fast train on the Virgin Line about nine and passed through the sprawling outskirts of London.  Soon we were seeing meadows with grazing sheep and farms with milk cows.  We passed what were either canals or rivers with elaborate houseboats moored to the banks reminding me of gypsy wagons.  One stream had large swans gracefully floating on it.

We encountered another interesting announcement when using the toilets when we were instructed, “Do not flush nappies, paper towels, old mail, unpaid bills, or your ex’s sweater down the toilet.”

We struck up a conversation with a woman who now lives in Bangor Wales and it was fascinating to hear some of her story and to use her as our own personal font of knowledge of what we saw. 

She remembers the war years, trained as a midwife, married a doctor, had five children who are scattered from Ireland to Australia, lived in Essex most of her married life and now lives in Wales near her daughter.  She had been in London visiting her older sister who is in a care facility now.

We saw a marvelous castle as we neared Bangor.  Unfortunately we were so close to it that we could not get a good photo!  In fact, we also tunneled under part of it.  Also along the war, we say the Mersey River and I wanted to break out in a Beatles’ song.

All along the tracks, a fuchsia spiked wildflower was blooming in wild profusion.   Our new acquaintance told me that it was Rose Bay Willow Herb and that she never remembers seeing it until after the bombings of London during World War 2.  In the mid out the devastation and burned out buildings, the flower came up and filled vacant lots.  What a story of that hope that story is!  

A group of teens shared the car with us on their way to a hiking vacation in Wales.  They detrained at Bangor also.

Now we have had the safety instructions, all the passengers are boarded and we are getting ready to sail to Ireland.  As we sail, we'll enjoy our lunch of cottage pie and veggies as we gaze out at the misty Irish Sea.

7:00 p.m.
We had a good taxi ride in to the city center.  Out taxi driver shared that Georgia Tech and Boston College open the season here this weekend.  We had already encountered fans in the taxi line.  What we saw of the city coming in was interesting and we we are very close at our hotel to the river which divides the city.  That will wait for another day!