Claire's blog

April 2026
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Rob’s visit

Dropped Rob off at the airport for his return flight, and then come into work to catch up on my email (I dragged the poor boy into work with me on Saturday, so I could get caught up enough on my cell work to take most of the day to take him back to Shannon).

Friday night we rented DVDs, and watched them that night and over the weekend. I TAKE NO RESPONSIBILITY FOR THE FILMS WE CHOSE TO WATCH, well, maybe a little responsibility – I think the initial suggestion for some of them may even have been mine 😳 We rented…

Sin City – I didn’t like this at all. Bad dialogue and trying too hard. Might have liked it better if I’d been into the comic books.

Constantine – better than I thought it was going to be. Probably a good thing in this case that I knew very little about the comic books as I understand it made quite a lot of changes (the only one I caught was the change of Constantine from a blond Liverpudlian to a dark Los Angelos). Wouldn’t buy it, might watch it again some time.

Daredevil – catching onto our theme yet? This was ok – not bad, not great.

The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen – saw it a few weeks ago, but Rob hadn’t seen it and it fit into our theme. Same as the last one, not too bad, not great.

Bruce Almighty – the only one of our choices not based on a comic book. Entertaining, I enjoyed it.Then on Saturday we drove into work, Rob was very patient while I dealt with a couple of things here, and then we set off into town, leaving the car at the university. First port of call was Galway Cathedral. A short walk from the university, and on the banks of the river, it’s quite a recently built Cathedral, with some beautiful stained glass and mosaic work inside. We then strolled along the river down as far as Spanish Arch.

View along Bridge street.

The river was running fast, and we saw quite a lot of birds on the look-out for fish.
Heron

Looking up the river to the Wolfe Tone Bridge, and the Cathedral in the distance.

We had a very nice meal in the Latin Quarter, popped into Charlie Byrnes Bookshop and the Galway Bead Shop, ambled around the Saturday Market (where we had fantastic caramelised banana, belgian chocolate and baileys crepes), and generally toured the city centre. It being quite a nice day the buskers were out in force, and these guys were drawing quite a crowd with the mix of guitar, singing, and a marionette dancing and playing around with the spectators.

We rounded off the day with some fantastic fish and chips from McDonaghs Seafood Bar

Sunday I got dragged out of bed, and we went in search of beaches, starting off with Silver Strand, a beach than can just be seen from my flat.

silver strand

After a walk along the beach and a bit of a scramble over the rocks, we got back in the car and headed for Spiddal were we had lunch, and a bit of a wander through Spiddal Craft Village. Neither of us were ready to get back in the car yet, so we followed this up with a stroll along one of Spiddal’s beaches, and a bit more scrambling over rocks.

Rob on a rock
That’s Rob you can see contemplating the infinite from the top of a large rock

Then it was back in the car, and a drive further out into Connemara. The scenery was fantastic, and Rob especially loved the tiny fields fenced off by drystone walls that have been picked out of very rocky and crumpled land.

We were heading out to Coral Strand, a beach I found more or less by accident when I took myself out for a drive soon after arriving in Ireland. When we got there we enjoyed a walk along the length of it which involved (you’ve guessed it) a certain amount of scrambling over rocks.