Did you know that “ornamental castles” were a thing?
Today I learned – They’re built by rich people to show off – purely aesthetic, and intended as a cool architectural novelty for the super-influential of the 19th century.
Andrea and I, on our drive back toward Dublin from Crotty’s Lake, stopped in to see one of these “follies”, as they’re called here. An ornamental castle entryway, meant to evoke the “good old days” of knights and lords.
…
I’ll be honest? They did pretty well. If I could afford to have these as my entryway, I totally would. No doubt.
Dear Lord, how long has it been since I’ve slept in a tent?
Sat by a fire?
Enjoyed the cool air outside of a city?
Well, that last one I was able to get every so often by sneaking out to Howth, or Bray… but they’re still close to the city, you know? You can feel the city nearby, if not actively smell it in the air… and getting out into the woods outside of Waterford meant that we couldn’t really even see any city lights!
Now, this is Ireland, of course. And so you’re never ACTUALLY away from a town. We could still see some farmhouses in the distance, and there were some lights that shone nearby in the evening once dark fell. But you know what? I could smell the trees, hear the gurgling of a nearby brook, and we had an absolutely lovely fire going on to keep warm and to amuse us with the crackling of the logs.
That’s right – City-girl Andrea came camping too! Now, to be clear, this wasn’t nearly her first time camping – and while I was cooking up burgers for dinner, she was handily getting the fire started and the camp chairs set up. A good delegation of labor, a hallmark of us brilliant MBA students.
The next day, we even had chance to hike up to Crotty’s lake itself!
Now’s as good a time as any to introduce my dear readers to Crotty – a highwayman and bandit from the… well, from the unknown history of the Waterford region. According to the owner of the land (yep, this is Ireland, and so everything is privately owned. Including the lake, and the mountain it resides on), Crotty was one of the inspirations for Robin Hood – an assertion I’m not completely convinced by… but I’ll leave this link for my readers to peruse at their own leasure:
The MBA was in full swing, and the second semester was taking a toll on me. It was even starting to wear on Andrea, which is impressive when you consider her legendary resilience to constant strain.
We needed a holiday, and we had a Wednesday free.
Well… We made the Wednesday free. We told our groups that we needed a break, and that we’d be unavailable for 24 hours. We hopped on the train, and made our way out of town to the peninsula of Howth, for a lovely walk by the seaside.
We kept our phones on silent. No classwork, no group messages, none.
That evening, we looked for inns to stay at… not finding anything in Howth, we picked a hotel near the train in Dublin, and enjoyed the rest of our 24 hours away from work, from the apartment, and from the insanity of the MBA.
