Last week’s post……the first in this “I Remember” series……dealt with a Parisian dining dilemma. Is it mere coincidence that this second episode dwells on a very different ordeal, in a vaguely similar setting?
I am guessing that each of you realize, and have experienced, how traveling with children is apt to include unscripted distractions……ranging from humbling amusement to outright panic.
In our later years, when the two of us hit the road on our own, there were other unscripted moments worthy of remembering. But at least in our household, it was traveling as a family that seems to have produced the most memorable memories.
In any case, it is perhaps understandable that my memory file, as lame as it sometimes is, was able to dial up the following recollection…..one that included both outright panic and a bit of “after-the-fact” amusement.
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Our Winchester Year was drawing to a close. There was, however, one last splurge on our schedule. We had decided months before that we would not complete our European adventure without seeing Ireland. Both of us had Irish roots in our family tree, and we wanted to know more about the “auld country.” It turned out to be well worth the investment of time and energy.
Still, by the end of our third week in the Emerald Isle, we were about ’traveled out.’ We were scheduled to catch the Holyhead ferry back to England the next afternoon, for a last good-bye visit with our Winchester friends.
We had seen so many Irish sights…..the Ring of Kerry, the Cliffs of Mohr, and the Connemara west country, and several fabled cities. In a moment of questionable wisdom we had even kissed the Blarney Stone, all six of us. How many times over the years have we wondered about that decision?
Now, after weeks of home-style bed and breakfast accommodations, we would be marking our last night in Ireland in a very different way. We had booked rooms in a honest-to-goodness castle…..the most elegant digs of our entire trip. It would be a night to remember.
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Kilkea Castle, in the heart of County Kildare, had been around for a while……since 1180. Like many historic European estates it had become a top-drawer tourist attraction……elegant rooms, with furnishings we were afraid we might break. For those who were so incline there was an 18 hole golf course, riding stables, tennis courts, even a falconry range. It was definitely not your run of the mill B & B.
That afternoon we had checked in, been shown to our rooms, and strolled the castle grounds. By then we had come to two conclusions……it seemed that ours were the only children in residence, and though the dining room was open until 10:00, the fellow at the front desk had suggested that we might want to dine early …..say 6:00.
A quick look at the dining room, situated in what was originally the castle’s Great Room, and ringed with ancient, oversized portraits, seemed to confirm his wisdom. Rather than risk upsetting the dinner hour for the couples who would be arriving at a more continental dining tie, say seven or eight, we would eat early.
Our table, in a near corner of the room, was simply elegant....with red cloth napkins, dainty, long stemmed water goblets of thin, sparkling glass, and more silverware than any of us knew how to use. Once we were seated the waiter brought our menus and explained the child-sized options, while another attendant filled our goblets with water. It was then, as we studied our meal possibilities, that things suddenly turned interesting, or more precisely……loud and chaotic.
Like all our children, daughter Amy had grown up drinking from plastic water glasses. Along the way she had developed an unconscious and seemingly innocent habit of chewing on the rim of her glass. So why should we have been surprised that as she sipped at her water goblet……she bit into its edge.
What followed happened so quickly it was hard to know who screamed first. All of us heard the conspicuous sound of breaking glass, and Amy’s surprised shriek. In an instant we were on our feet, bending over her…..trying to calm her and learn if she was cut or had possibly swallowed any glass. A second later our waiter was on the scene, apologizing profusely, without knowing what he was apologizing for…..looking as though he feared an international incident.
Finally, as Amy’s tears of shocked surprise subsided, something like a reasoned calm was restored. Fortunately she was fine.…..still frightened, but without a cut or injury of any kind.
Once things settled down we placed our orders and had our meal…..while drinking our water very carefully. I doubt that any of us remembered what we had for dinner. By then, having created such a fuss we were anxious to be back in our room.
More than once in the course of that evening Gil paused to wonder if Amy’s mishap had been a sign. Perhaps the fates were telling us that we were meant to be the “cheese and crackers, lunch in the car” sort of family we normally were. Was that something we had learned in the course of our European adventure?
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Those days in Ireland had been filled with delicious sights, enough to bring us back to the Emerald Isle a few more times. Yet, when it comes to ’times remembered,’ Amy’s ‘shattering’ adventure, deep in the heart of the most posh surroundings we could imagine, was certainly one of our most memorable moments.
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