Family roots...

When we stayed in Leeds we took a day trip to Barnsley. Nathan's Nana was born near here (in a small village called Ryhill) and her family moved to NZ when she was very young. Unfortunately it was a bank holiday when we visited so not much was open! This is the town hall. It had beautiful flower-beds in front of it in memory of the September 11 victims.

This is the River Liffey in Dublin. We really enjoyed the museums in this city and took a river cruise. If you look closely, you can see the red boat that we cruised on just about to pass under the bridge. This was taken on the only fine day we had!

As we drove south we stopped at Kildare. St Brigid's Cathedral is here, built on the site of the religious community she set up. Holy Family School, where Bronwyn worked, was founded by the Brigidine sisters.

We stayed in a cottage near Waterford for five days and visited the Waterford Crystal Factory. It was fascinating watching the glass being heated, blown, shaped and cut. Sorry, we didn't buy all your Christmas presents - they could have broken (along with the visa statement) as we trekked around Europe!

We also went to Blarney Castle near Cork. It didn't look like too much fun to bend over backwards, three storeys up so we didn't kiss the Blarney Stone. The gardens and rock close were nice so we didn't miss much.