Tuesday

Today was a down day. We stayed at the cottage and relaxed , napped, went for a walk and just enjoyed being here. Oh we did have a visitor.......... Skip the sheep dog.

I know I am way behind on posting but I will catch up.  I thought this was a good place to tell you about driving in Ireland. Cory asked the gentleman who drove us from the airport to pick up our car if he had any tips about driving in Ireland.
He told us that we had to drive on the other side of the road and unlike  Canada 🇨🇦 you can’t turn right on a red light ,................. everything else were just suggestions.  It is very true.  If you see a parking space you pull in ............ it doesn’t matter which side of the road you are on.  People make U-turns in the middle of the road, every one stops for the horses and carriages to turn around..... people walk across the road wherever they want. If you happen to be at a cross walk and the walk sign is red but there is no traffic you just walk across.

 I mentioned the traffic circles in Dublin that have traffic lights on them but on the motorways (highways to us) the traffic circles are like we have.  As the towns get smaller so do the traffic circles, down to the point where it is about a 5 foot circle in the middle of the intersection.

Then there is the "Traffic Calming" areas.  This is done by putting honking great speed bumps across the road ( Cory uses a different term for them which I won’t repeat).

Speed limits:- on the motorway the speed is usually 120 km
                     -in town it is anywhere between 30 and 50.
                    -  the smaller paved roads with no shoulders ( these are either hard or soft, shoulders that is not the road surface), just wide enough for two vehicles and very winding have posted speeds of between 80 and 100 km
                     -unpaved roads have a speed of only 70 because they are slightly narrower and bumpy.

So this is what we know so far about driving in Ireland.