More than a month ago, Anita wrote about the shocking revelation that mere water would remove frost from her windscreen.
At least one person expressed skepticism, and we understand the incredulity that might come from the northern latitudes of other continents. So, today, we offer you a video demonstration of this distinctive method. (more…)
If you follow the Tumblr photos in the sidebar of this blog, then you’ve seen a few shots of the snow in Dublin this week. If you’ve visited the Bugle B&B, then you know that there’s a desolate mountain range just south of Dublin. It’s one of my favourite places in Ireland.
It’s still fascinating to this child of the Corn Belt that such an inhospitable area is so close to Dublin, just a few kilometres beyond the suburbs. You can take the urban bus system into the Wicklow Mountains. If you research hillwalking in County Wicklow on the internet, you’ll see plenty of warnings about weather conditions. Those warnings resonated with my wariness of mountainous terrain. And I was not long in Ireland before I saw how quickly a sunny walk along a little trail can turn into a beating administered by a cold, wet wind followed by rain and flooding creeks.
This week, those warnings were completely vindicated, (more…)
Last weekend,
we toured the Donegal region of Ireland, the northwest corner of Ireland. (Highlighted in blue here; thanks to the creators on the Wikimedia Commons.)
It was quiet in Donegal; some B&Bs and a few tourist sites were closed until late spring. That befits the weather of Donegal, which is hardly welcoming for snowbirds. We had an outstanding weekend, in part due to the quiet season.
This weekend will not be quiet for that region, as the World Rally Championship kicks off today on some of the very same roads that Anita drove one week ago. (more…)
From the best word-a-day website, at wordsmith.org:
serein
PRONUNCIATION:
(suh-RAN [the second syllable is nasal])MEANING:
noun: Fine rain falling from an apparently cloudless sky, typically observed after sunset.ETYMOLOGY:
From French serein, from Old French serain (evening), from Latin serum (evening), from serus (late).USAGE:
“She must have caught a chill from the serein, that’s all!” Raphael Confiant; Mamzelle Dragonfly; Farrar, Straus and Giroux; 2000.
Here in Dublin, I’ve observed serein during the morning, afternoon, and evening as well. I don’t know of any uniquely Irish slang for this type of rain, although there are lots of words and colloquial phrases for heavier rain.
There must be a word for serein, given how common it is here (and how uncommon it is everywhere else I’ve lived).
It was summer today!
Hip hip, hooray!
It was a really warm day!
Maybe it will stay…
People swarmed all over the public spaces of Dublin’s city centre today, to enjoy one of what may be just a few summery days of the year. I had a few errands to do, and I found myself compelled to take the long way round. (more…)
Since its founding, the Bakker Bugle Bed & Breakfast has provided a special experience for visitors to Ireland. This spring, the BBB&B started making that experience even more special, through the BBB&B No-Rain Pledge™. (See below for more details.)
We are proud to announce the preliminary results of our innovative Irish Precipitation Undermining Programme. (more…)
The best time to get coffee in Dublin is 12:45. There are few people waiting in line, and you can get a seat at one of the few tables on the sidewalk. Just as you get comfortable in your seat in the sun, the office doors open like the spillways of the Hoover Dam, and the parade begins. (more…)
Ireland is a strange place right now – it’s warm and sunny. Will and I aren’t sure exactly what is going on and we’re concerned that it’s some sort of strange apocalypse. Our guests at the BBB&B have been enjoying sun, warmth and good time. One guest even got a sunburn!
Today was another great day of weather, which was perfect because today was the Flora Women’s Mini-Marathon. Last year, the marathon ran on the third day of Will’s arrival, so that means we’re celebrating Will’s one year anniversary in Dublin! I arrived earlier in May, so I celebrated a few weeks ago. It was exciting last year to have the event in our neighborhood – the first of many throughout 2007. If you’re curious, take a look at a few photos from this year.
As we celebrate our anniversary, we want to thank everyone who lived through the past year with us. Knowing that our friends and family were with us in spirit (and in comments!) was a great help.
We’re not sure what the next year will bring, but we hope that you stay with us! We have more guests arriving tomorrow, so the Blog staff is still over at the B&B helping out. But in a couple more weeks, the Blog staff will be back to work and the posting frequency should increase dramatically.
Here’s today’s forecast from Met Eireann, the Republic’s weather service.
The symbol in the lower left corner is the typical weather for Dublin. On a good day, we get the sun-rain-LIGHT-clouds symbol (upper-left and upper-right symbols).
It seems a little surreal to combine every possibility into a single symbol, but it really is the most effective way to communicate a forecast. The forecast for the four regions in this clipping makes sense to me, and I’ve only been here a short while.
I did a fair amount of research over the 8 days of sun that ended today, and I came to a conclusion. When the sun is out in Dublin, it is at least as strong as the sun in Gurnee in mid-May. It is more than strong enough to bask in a sunny spot, even late in the day.
This was a subject of some speculation before I left the lower latitudes of Chicagoland (42° N), Pennsylvania (40° N), New Jersey and NYC (40° N). At that time, Anita was sending messages that vividly portrayed a dim sun that rarely penetrated thick clouds. To reassure myself, I thought, “Surely Dublin is no higher than the UP — and people sunbathe there, right?” Then I actually checked:
Is this one of the many things that cannot be conveyed by reading and research about a place? I couldn’t trust Irish sources, after all; “basking in the sun” might mean something very different to them.
Powered by WordPress
