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Yesterday, Gill and I drove to Bournemouth to visit Brian and to see where he studies. He's in his third year of four at the Anglo-European Chiropractic College there. We had a lovely drive - it takes two hours to travel sixty miles as there are numbers ( ... and I mean loads!!) of traffic circles and other time-consuming tricks of the highway. However, the scenery was delightful and the sun was shining. It doesn't get any better than that, right?
We saw Brian's living quarters - he shares a lovely house above a shop with three other 'mature' students. We also had a tour of his college (pictured here). For the catholics amongst you, you may make out that the building is an old convent. In fact, the present-day library is the former chapel and still has niches for statues (one had Priscilla, the human body that you can dismantle, only Priscilla had male appendages in this case), remnants of altars, and stained-glass windows.
We had lunch in a vegetarian restaurant (yum, yum) and also went for a toot by the seaside. It was a most pleasant day. Poor Brian had to put up with introducing the 'two mothers' to all those we encountered in his college. That ordeal should earn him a few notches above a pass mark!!
We're planning to hit the road again soon - after Judi and George's visit - to Oxford this time, to stay in the B & B where Brian and Lili are planning to have their wedding reception. There's no stopping us now! :-)
On December 30th, after having had a lovely holiday in the south of Ireland, I travelled north to Derry. I invaded Leona and Ib Banat and their four children ... plus Ib's cousin Ramsi and Aleksandra, Ramsi's girlfriend. I had not seen the Banats since 1995, the year I left the Emirates. At the time I last saw t
hem, Malik was 10, Lyali was 8, Jareer was 5 (I think) and Aiya was 6 months. They were very cute little kids. Now (still very cute), they range in age from 21 to 12. It took a little adjustment on my part to reconcile these big kids with the little ones they had been!
Unfortunately, all of the photos I took on that trip were on a card that was corrupted (don't ask me how that happened - it's sooooo disappointing!!) so I don't have any of my own photos to post. However, the two photos I copied from the Internet give an idea of how beautiful Derry is. If you click on these images, they expand to give an even better view of Derry.
I had a lovely time with Leona and Ib and 'entourage.' Their home (it's a mansion!!) is on a lake and they are in the heart of the countryside while being only a few minutes' drive from the center of the city.
We celebrated New Year's Eve together ... I was there for four days. We also celebrated Malik's 21st birthday.
Malik and Lyali are both studying medicine. They're at University of East Anglia in Norwich. Jareer and Aiya are still in hig
h school, a lovely building on spacious grounds in the heart of Derry. Leona took me on a comprehensive tour of Derry, including the kids' school, her old school, her church, and her old neighbourhood. There's so much history (some of it quite turbulent) and the old buildings are beautiful and well preserved.
Between my time in Killarney and my foray into Derry, this will have been a Christmas and New Year celebration that will be impossible to match!
By the way, Ib and Ramsi did most of the cooking while I was staying with the Banats ... and it was not only delicious, it was artistically presented. Those two are talented cooks and they played Arabic music as they cooked meals of gourmet standards. It was fun to watch them and to listen to them sing along with the music.
I sure hope that we manage to see more of one another. If we wait another 11 years, I'll be 77 and the kids will be in their thirties and twenties. That's 'not on' :-).
January 15, 2007 ... I can't believe it. Where has January gone????? I'm just beginning to accept that it's the beginning of the year 2007, and January is already half over. Yowks!!!
See that building in the photograph? That's Coffey's Loch Lein House Hotel in Killarney. That's where Kate, Sean, and I had rooms. Some of Sean's siblings' friends also had rooms in the hotel. Although it's officially closed until April, since they own the hotel, Sean's parents arranged for us to stay there. They turned on the heat and allowed us the pick of rooms. It feels like living in a Hollywood mansion. All of the windows you see look out on to a lake and an impressive range of mountains. Sean's parents have a beautiful, large home across the road from the hotel. When they travel the few hundred feet from house to hotel (sometimes by car!), they say they're going 'above.' When they leave the hotel for home - you've guessed it - they say they're going 'below.' Cute! Those are very Irish expressions, I think.
I spent ten days in Killarney. Eight of the nine children were home for Christmas. The tenth, Brian, was visiting his sweetheart in Korea (she's there for six months, teaching English). For those of you who know him, Traolach was also there.
Need I mention that I had a memorable Christmas 2006? It was more than I could ever have wished for!
Yesterday, Gill and I drove to Bournemouth to visit Brian and to see where he studies. He's in his third year of four at the Anglo-European Chiropractic College there. We had a lovely drive - it takes two hours to travel sixty miles as there are numbers ( ... and I mean loads!!) of traffic circles and other time-consuming tricks of the highway. However, the scenery was delightful and the sun was shining. It doesn't get any better than that, right?
hem, Malik was 10, Lyali was 8, Jareer was 5 (I think) and Aiya was 6 months. They were very cute little kids. Now (still very cute), they range in age from 21 to 12. It took a little adjustment on my part to reconcile these big kids with the little ones they had been!
h school, a lovely building on spacious grounds in the heart of Derry. Leona took me on a comprehensive tour of Derry, including the kids' school, her old school, her church, and her old neighbourhood. There's so much history (some of it quite turbulent) and the old buildings are beautiful and well preserved.
