Friday, 5 August 2016

Update On My Life

Some of you realize that I have had weeks where I missed posting an entry. There were days when I was so busy with other things that I would forget to post. And then there were other days when the energy had just disappeared.

This week was a little bit different. It goes without being said that having a long weekend can sometimes throw your daily schedule off for part of the following week. Well, that happened to me this week. I have not been sleeping well lately, but I am hoping that over the next week or two, it will be rectified.

Yesterday, I had an appointment at the Orofacial Clinic in St John’s. I had been to my dentist in early July as I was having some pain in my gum and it was also swollen. After an x-ray and some poking around, I was informed that it looked like one of my teeth had a fractured root. I was going to be sent to a specialist in St John’s who deals with root canals. It was going to be a six- to eight-month wait to get in to see him.

About a week or two later, I noticed something strange. After the antibiotics were completed, the swelling was gone but there seemed to be a white line in my gum. I didn’t do anything about it then, but within a week, it was starting to break through the gum. I did a quick visit to the dentist and, it turned out that the fractured root had decided that it didn’t want to stay in place and wanted to see the world. It had actually cut through the gum. The visit to the previous specialist was no longer the option. Instead, I was sent to the Orofacial Clinic to have the tooth and root fragments extracted.

This visit happened on Thursday of this week. I spent Tuesday and Wednesday getting ready to go and still forgot to take some of the paperwork with me. My husband had to go with me as I was in no condition to be doing any driving on Thursday. We left to arrive in St John’s early enough to go see the Star Trek movie that is currently playing at the show. Then we checked into the Comfort Inn on Airport Drive. I chose this one because it is very close to the clinic. Unfortunately, I did not set my alarm properly and woke up about twenty minutes late. We still made it in time and we got lost along the way.

I was put right under because I made sure that I didn’t get enough sleep so that I would have no problem going to sleep. Apparently, the procedure only took about ten minutes. I was woken up about 9:16. My appointment started at 8:00 am after I filled out the prerequisite paperwork. We were sent on our way by 10 am.

I had a couple of places that I wanted to go to since we were in St John’s. One of them was the Maritime History Archives at Memorial University. I had sent them a list of ships’ records that I wanted to get a copy of. This was our first stop. We had the work done by 11:45. From there, we went to the library of the Newfoundland Family History Society. I asked some pertinent questions regarding cemeteries and found that my best option would be to join the society and I would be able to do what I needed to do to start that particular research at home in comfort.

From there, I had wanted to make a stop at the Family History Library and the St John’s Chapel of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints to see what records they have and a quick trip to Avalon Mall to get the hand soap that I like. I decided that I had done enough and needed to start for home instead. I still hadn’t had anything to eat or drink since the night before and the freezing was coming out and the pain was starting.

We decided to see about filling the prescription for the pain killer and the mouth rinse that were prescribed. We went into a branch of the pharmacy that I deal with in Gander, but I would have had to fill out the paperwork again and didn’t have the insurance information with me, so I decided that I could wait until we got back to Gander.

We tried a restaurant in Paradise but they didn’t have anything that I could eat. We then tried a pub about five minutes away, but they didn’t serve any food. So we drove down the highway about an hour, when I told Gordon that I needed a stop. Within five minutes we came across a gas station with a restaurant called Monty’s Restaurant. They were quite happy to give me what I wanted. I needed soft food and asked for scrambled eggs, with soft toast, and a bowl of seafood chowder. The chowder was fantastic.

I slept most of the way home, but the road is under construction right now and my sleep was not very good. I honestly thought that I didn’t sleep very much, that it was more of a doze. When I went to bed last night, I had trouble going to sleep. The first stop that we did when we reached Gander was to fill my prescriptions, of which I took the first dosage of painkiller when we arrived at home.

Today, I was able to function more normally, and did some of the things that I needed to accomplish today. I am at a point that I think that I will be getting a better night’s sleep tonight.

In a sense, I am happy that I have been able to complete the entries for the trip to Ireland, but now I am betwixt and between what I want to write about now. I will find something soon as soon as my head clears a bit more. I know. I want to rant about having to fill out more forms for the chain of stores where I already frequent one. More of this next time.


Have a good weekend.

Monday, 1 August 2016

Donnybrook



On our last night in Ireland, it was decided that we would have a special dinner, one that gave us a chance to spend time together without any real rush. This event took place in the community of Donnybrook.

Donnybrook is a district of Dublin which is in the south side. It has an interesting history that goes back to the 12h century. At the beginning of the 13th century, King John signed a charter for the Donnybrook Fair which existed until 1866. It started off as an agricultural fair, but degraded into a fair that promoted “fun” and drunkenness. Things got to be so bad that the local people raised money and prominent citizens and clergy purchased the rights to the fair. The fair had been held on the property that is now used as the Donnybrook Rugby Ground and the Ever Ready Garage. The name, Donnybrook, came to describe a rowdy brawl.

Donnybrook is a civil parish that consists of sixteen townlands. Twelve of the townlands belong to the Barony of Dublin. Three of the remaining townlands belong to the Barony of Rathdown. The final townland, Sallymount, is in the Barony of Uppercross.



On Morehampton Road, you will find a small establishment that looks like a pub from the outside. I’m not sure what the main floor of the restaurant looks like as we were ushered upstairs to the Belmont Room which is designed to host parties up to 90 participants. It has its own bar and washrooms, as well as a lounge area and fireplace. The dining area is split into two areas, upper and lower. There is also a fairly large reception area as you enter from the stairwell. Entertainment had also been arranged for us, we were treated to a final night of Irish music.



When we arrived, we were presented with a demonstration of how to make Irish soda bread. We were even given a copy of the recipe and told about possible pitfalls. After this, we then sat down to a very good meal. I believe that there were either three or four choices which were made before we even arrived in Ireland. The food was delicious and plentiful. I cannot for the life of me what I had as we have been back for three months now and a great deal has happened since then.



Once the food was out of the way, we had a bit of an appreciation party, giving thanks to Lesley Anderson for all of the work that she had done for us both before and during the tour. We also showed our appreciation to our bus driver and guide, Austin, from CIE Tours in Ireland.



The time came that we had to vacate the restaurant and travel back to our hotel for our last night in Ireland. We had a long day ahead of us with our travel back to Canada and to our various homes, mostly in Ottawa, but a couple from Alberta, three or four from the States, and myself currently living in Newfoundland.


It was a good trip. I plan to go back to Ireland to visit the places that I want to get to know better and to do some research that I can’t do in Canada. Who knows, this might happen sooner than later. We will see.

I am sure that Lesley Anderson will appreciate the following picture. My brother and I had gone for a walk on our last night in Belfast so that I could get some pictures. I came across this one during that time. Lesley, if you are reading this, please enjoy: