"By Seeing London, I have Seen as much of Life as the World can Show." - Samuel Johnson

Patriotism, the feelings of love and devotion people have for their own country, is not usually seen as a very English character trait. I quite like that about being English. We're surrounded by nations that are completely different; Scotland, Wales, Ireland - they all have an enormous sense of national pride. Not to mention our "friends" across the pond. Meanwhile, we show our love for our country by laughing at Boris Johnson, betting against our sports teams and a huge amount of eye-rolling. 

Despite these things, I defy any English person to not feel a little bit patriotic when they see these buildings: 

I love our capital city. London is amazing. A fellow-Lichfieldian, Samuel Johnson who compiled the first English Dictionary, said "When a man is tired of London, he is tired of life." 

The most fantastic thing about London is that my best friend currently lives there - giving me the best reason (and perfect excuse) to visit frequently. This time, Ben was working so he couldn't come along. It's fun to visit together but it was really nice to have some girly time. I totally made the most of it. 

Firstly, a visit to London wouldn't be complete with a trip to the West End. I'm a big fan. This time I went to see Once the Musical. I'd heard lots about the show before seeing it myself and I knew the song "Falling Slowly". That is, admittedly, a beautiful song and it was the highlight of the show for me. Otherwise it didn't reach me much. I mean, everyone wants a sexy Irish guy to sing love songs to them and all, but that was about the level on which it affected me. 

After the matinee, I met Monique after work and was kidnapped. Seriously. I was directed to a bus stop and we started travelling to an unknown location. Apart from being altogether freaked out due to my control issues, it was a pretty exciting way to begin the trip! Especially as we ended up looking out at this view. 

The bar in The Shard is 31 floors up and is an amazing place to have a mock-tail and look at the sparkling London lights. Plus, it was less expensive to get two drinks and sit relaxing and chatting than to go to the 51st floor and look for a few minutes at the London skyline. It was fantastic. 

On our way to breakfast the next morning we stopped by the White Cube art gallery. I saw the "shhh" all over the wall and had to take a picture because on one occasion talking in my sleep I had told Ben, "There's a whole load of shhh with your name on it!" 

Basically, most of the things we did were dictated by food and where we could find it. The Breakfast Club usually has a ridiculous queue on the weekends so we decided to use our free Friday morning to our advantage. And oh my goodness.... we rolled out of there! 

After that, we walked around ten miles around London. I'm not even kidding. I don't know quite what fueled us but I think mainly it was the feeling of guilt from our glutenous breakfast. It was lovely to just be able to wander along the banks of the Thames. 

Next on the list was the Saatchi Gallery.  Along with flags made from hair and a basement oil lake there were these delightful things. I'll leave you to have your own thoughts about them: 

The first picture of the gallery with the message against consumerism must have really deeply affected us because our next stop was Harrods. In Laduree we were joined by Hollie, another of my London-based friends, for hot chocolate and a macaroon. We spent two and a half hours talking and laughing.

Later that evening we went to The Vaults to see a young performer called Yve Blake: Lie Collector. Despite a conversation beforehand in which we promised that neither of us was going to cooperate with any audience participation, I turned to Monique as I chanted "WHO... Stole the Milk?" and was amused to see that we were equally as involved. It was a fun night out. 

On my final day in London we hung out at Maltby Street Market. I love Street Markets anyway, but this one is seriously awesome mainly because it is actually just one street. It's so compact and cute. Monique got a Brazilian wrap, I got a leek flatbread and we sat at Little Bird Gin and had a (virgin) rhubarb and lime drink. To top it all off, we had salted caramel brownie. 

It was the perfect few days of escape, conversation and laughter. We even had the occasional moment of silence, which would have shocked our significant others. And, some things were just shocking. 

So, while I know it's practically a crime to feel patriotic in England, I've been caught red-handed. So I better go and roll my eyes at something! 

The Gift of the Gab

Last week Ben and I had a beautiful week off in Ireland, where Ben served his mission. 

The theme for the week has to be taken from this wonderful graffiti that was scrawled into the Howth harbour wall:

I can't say that I got "mad knowledge" of myself on our trip but it was a beautiful place to go and reflect and have some time away from work. 

I don't hate work. I like work. I see a point to productivity and always have. It gives people self-belief and teaches you discipline and it's motivating to achieve. People benefit from being employed. But however much I was excited to go to school in a morning, I was most definitely one of those kids who was sitting in their chair wearing their coat at 15:10 watching the last five minutes tick away. I was too much of a stickler for the rules to have moved before 15:15 but I wanted to be out of the door the second that minute hand moved to the quarter and not a second after. Going home didn't always mean play time, but it meant I could go at my own pace and work how and when I wanted to and I like that sense of freedom. 

Ireland is a wonderful place to go to feel free! We were incredibly lucky to have wonderful weather (no rain) the whole time we were there. 

Our flight was from Birmingham airport and was with Aer Lingus (operated by Stobart). We took one 20kg bag and the cabin crew member who checked us in was kind enough to let us reshuffle some of the packing to ensure we didn't have to pay as we'd gone over the weight. I wore walking boots, a jacket and my waterproof on the flight as a result, on top of leaving some of the toiletries with my Dad who dropped us off at the airport. What a champ! 

Soon enough, we were in Cork! 

Ben had the opportunity of educating me in Irish-lingo. There are three main regions of the country with specific suffixes. 

"Cork, so!" 

"Dublin, like!" 

"Belfast, so it is!"

Apparently, that was all I needed to know and I was set! 

I had been to Ireland before, but (as I mentioned, making the Cork locals agree whole-heartedly) I had only seen Dublin which is like saying you've been to England and only going to London. So, I'll mention Dublin first. 

Ben and I spent one night in Dublin - but it was a pretty eventful night. 

I had booked for us to stay in Russell Court Hotel as I'd found what I thought was a steal. £26 for the night! What could possibly go wrong? Please check out the pictures on the website and know that the hotel we stayed in looked NOTHING like this. We walked in and were greeted at the reception by a man that Ben dubbed "Igor". He had a thick eastern-European accent and was our first taste of the creepiness of the hotel. Next came the lift. Which barely fit the two of us and our bags. 

When we had eventually rattled our way to our floor, dragged our bags to the very end room and pushed open a huge, creaky door, we saw our room. 

The ceiling was 20ft high with two enormous mirrors on the two interior walls whose purpose was rendered completely redundant by the fact that they started about half way up the wall, climbing skyward rather than maintaining a position of utility. The exterior wall, directly in front of us as we entered, had three windows that reached from the floor to the ceiling with dark, foreboding curtains bent on shutting out the light making it impossible to capture the room in a photograph. Built-in cabinets with rough glass windows were on our left and to the right was the pitiful furniture. Two large, green-leather arm chairs obscured a small table from our view, arranged in such a way that you could imagine we had interrupted a duo of ghosts playing cards. Between two of the windows, an old-fashioned letter-writing desk with a broken cover. The bathroom was a ghoulish nightmare. The four-poster bed looked sad and bare without the curtains that evidently once hung there. I was just glad the curtains weren't there so I could see what was going on in every inch of the room at all times. Oh yes, and did I mention? A tram line passing our window every 20 minutes. And a nightclub in the building underneath us. They robbed us of that £26. 

Near Dublin

I'm happy to report that we survived the night and went (bleary-eyed) into Dublin the following day. 

Other attractions we saw include Eddie Rocket's (Ed's Dinner, Ireland style): 

Ben also told me we had to go and climb inside a big rock-hill. I was not altogether convinced but then we got to Newgrange. 

Newgrange is a passage-tomb, built (it's believed) around 5000 years ago and excavated and returned to its former glory by archaeologists. Going inside it is amazing, especially when they demonstrate the way the light would have come through the window-box at the top of the door at Winter solstice, pointing at a point on the floor up the passageway. It's really incredible to have that Indiana-Jones feeling of walking into a corridor that people used 5000 years ago and speculating on the reasons and purpose of the monument is fascinating. 

The rest of our time was spent in Cork and the south-west of Ireland -we'll go back one day and explore Northern Ireland and the North-east. 

Kinsale

We walked around James Fort which overlooks Kinsale, a pretty village with a beautiful little harbour. James Fort overlooks the sea. 

 Cork 

Cork surrounds the River Lee. The thing I was most excited to do in Cork was ringing the Shandon Bells. Ben and I climbed the St Anne's bell tower and rang the bells which was lovely. Then we climbed up further through the bells and pigeon excrement (not so lovely) to see views over the city. We had to wear protective headgear so if any other bell-ringers became too enthusiastic while we were right next to the bells, we would retain our ability to hear.

Cobh

If Ben was going to live in Ireland, he would want to live in Cobh. It was the last place the Titanic stopped to pick up passengers before it headed off to the unfortunate disaster. It has pretty colours, a beautiful cathedral and one of the biggest natural harbours in the world.

The Ring of Kerry

I'm not sure I've ever seen anything more beautiful that some of the views from the Ring of Kerry. Though Ben had told me I'd be impressed with the majesty of this place, I was still overwhelmed. Plus, I think I might have found my favourite place ever in a little beach off the Ring of Skellig. 

Then there are colours like this seen from Valentia Island:

 And, coming away from the coastline, it all culminates in Killarney National Park:

 Blarney

Blarney Castle was our last stop. We couldn't possibly have left Ireland without scaling the heights of Blarney Castle and receiving the Gift of the Gab by kissing the Blarney Stone.

See that little patch of light at the top of the tower? That's where you lean to kiss the Blarney Stone. Good job I'm not afraid of heights... oh... wait, I am! But I managed it and so did Ben! Hurray!

So, we leave you with pictures of a robin (we saw 6 during our trip!) and ourselves enjoying Killarney National Park!

Visit Ireland!