We woke up to blue skies and sunshine and a forecast that said it would stay for the day with maybe a few showers in the afternoon. So it was off to Trinity college retracing our steps from the morning before but able to saunter rather than shelter. A stop at the post office opposite Molly to post the obligatory cards and on to College Green. The pedestrian crossings here remind me of the ones in the Hong Kong as they click down to green and then clang as you rush across…except the volume in Hong Kong was deafening! 😊

The entrance to the college is flanked by two statues, Burke and Goldsmith, and wild flowers. I even spotted some late poppies.

Once we were into the enormous courtyard the wind was cutting so I stopped to put on my raincoat, a great buy as it is for hiking so thin but windproof. We followed the signs for the Book of Kells and were ushered in straightaway with my pre-paid tickets.

The Book of Kells experience is very well thought out. Room one introduces you to the history of it and two other books from the same era and place, Iona, then guides you through the techniques, the imagery, the inks used…

We spent a long time reading explanations and descriptions, trying to avoid the guided groups who tended to station themselves in front of things for a bit longer than always felt necessary. Despite the timed entrances it seemed a bit crowded.

Discovering that our surname has such significance in religious texts was a surprise so we soon started to see how many we could spot.

There are two here if you look hard! I loved learning about the imagery and the difference between the scribes (four had worked on the Book of Kells which contains the New Testament) and the artists who illustrated it; how mistakes were highlighted and/or covered up; how there were no rules for how certain letters should be decorated. I discovered a new meaning for the word shrine, not a building but a solid box to keeping the testament safe from harm.

The second room of the Experience was the actual book. Alone in its glass display case in a room with subdued lighting we moved past it as if queuing for a lying in state! There was a small label telling us to look for corrections and I made sure I read it and found them…as I doubt I’ll be here again! 😊

Then it was up the stairs to the Long Room or library. The place is under renovation and most of the books have been moved and undergone a thorough and painstaking cleaning and conserving while the library itself is brought up to current safety standards.

So a lot of empty shelves but a huge installation hangs above you which was inspired by the renovation but seemed at odds with the historic atmosphere of the place.

More in keeping seemed the oldest harp in Ireland, much smaller than I’d been expecting.

Back outside and into the biting wind we put all the layers back on and went in search of coffee..

Walking up Grafton street to St Stephen’s green, we ducked into one of the many souvenir shops so Mr McGregor could buy a woolly hat as he was suffering from that wind. I was very glad of my soft and warm scarf. The shop assistant recommended a coffee shop and so that’s why we walked the length of the street, past the buskers and the carriage tours, to finally sit down in the warm.

Mr McGregor modelled his hat for an online friend and looked very much like a manic leprechaun!

We surprised ourselves by finding a quicker than we had imagined route back our hotel, passing the Gaiety theatre on the way with its celebrity handprints set into the pavement outside..

For lunch we chose Peter’s pub, close to our hotel, a quiet bar but with a bustling proprietor who took a big interest in his customers by asking where they came from. We were amused by his response to the couple next to us from the Isle of Wight, he assumed it was a Scottish island. The Americans from Ohio were told there was a Dublin in that state! On hearing Lou’s reply he decided it was hot where we lived. Not all year, himself replied!

Comme d’hab, while my old man rested his eyelids I went off to visit a museum I’d seen advertised and which piqued my interest…books.

It was in the Chester Beatty library which, when I finally found it, turned out to be the collection of an American business magnate who took British nationality and ended up being knighted. He collected middle and far eastern texts, a lot of them medieval, so I found myself poring over more beautifully illustrated manuscripts from Iran, Turkmenistan, Turkey, Japan…. There is definitely a beautiful book theme to this holiday, it was like being in the British library treasures exhibit all over again.

I had wandered into this particular exhibition space, ‘The art of the book’, because it was on the same floor as the one I intended visiting so it was a wonderful bonus.

But I wasn’t disappointed by that one either. Much smaller and decoration of a different style but just as beguiling if, like me, you love flowers and plants.

I was surprised and delighted to see butcher’s broom in one illustration, a plant I had no knowledge of before moving to France but which grows abundantly in the woods at the bottom of our garden that I pick every Christmas for decoration…of a different kind!

We rounded off the day by revisiting O’Neills where we had lunched the day before. It was absolutely packed despite it only being 7 o’clock and as we about to abandon any hope of finding a table in its rabbit warren of bars up and down, a woman generously offered to share her large table with us as she was leaving when she ‘finished her drink’. Thankfully, we accepted and talked to her for a while. After she left an American couple next to us started to chat as we all ate our food. Jim and Mary-Jo were from Colorado and here with their grown -up children and trying to adapt to driving on ‘the wrong side’. After they left the place was still busy and as we would soon be leaving too we moved aside to their vacated small table so three chaps could have our bigger one. It transpired two of them were French and trying to translate ‘shepherds pie’. I couldn’t resist and soon the talk was flowing again. Crazily, one came from Villeneuve de Rouergue, about two hours from us, and knew our department well. Just as we left the other one asked if we knew a certain person from our area. We did, I said, he replaced the roof on our little house!

I’m still not sure he believed me though! 😊