Failte chuig Baile Atha Cliath

I am very reliably informed that means Welcome to Dublin and I have ignition on the wireless signal so we are all systems go, though I'm working on my tiny netbook so seeing the screen and hitting the right keys is a bit haphazard, my apologies for typos.

I think I might know why Plymouth Airport is closing... and I'm not complaining at all but I have never known security like it and I guess with so few flights leaving they do have the time to be thorough. So my suitcase, and only mine was selected for a spot check and complete unpack at check-in. Might as well have had it all in a carrier bag and packed it on the counter.

Do I look shifty??

Anyway into departures after much more bag searching and shoe removal where I made friends with a lovely Irish nun going back home for a week. Sister Mary told me she was always being stopped and searched because no one trusts a nun these days, it's the garb of choice for the drug smuggler apparently. And the metal head band in her wimple always sets off the alarms and we agreed that she could indeed get a fair stash of all manner of illegal bounty under her veil. I am working on the assumption that she really was Sister Mary of course.

But 'twas lovely to fly up and over Plymouth and as the plane headed towards Newquay I feel sure we must have flown over home, and many apologies to the Canadian gentleman sitting in the window seat next to me who had to put up with me leaning across and snapping away with the camera. But we had a geography lesson too and how incredible the Tamar looks from the air and then the china clay pits in Cornwall, a really dramatic impact on the landscape.

So I am installed, have had a wander through Trinity College and meant to go to St Stephen's Green but found myself in the wonderful Hodges Figgis bookshop and well, doesn't time fly.


Tomorrow it's Bloomsday Breakfast along O'Connell Street and it's suddenly dawned on me that it might be fried kidneys which is likely to turn it into more of a bushtucker trial where I'm concerned, but I'll do my best for you all.