We have 68 guests and no members online
To see the remaining photographs (not already linked above) click on the image below:
Glacial meltwater Jasper National Park
In October 2018 we travelled to Ireland. Later we would go on to England (the south coast and London) before travelling overland (and underwater) by rail to Belgium and then on to Berlin to visit our grandchildren there.
The island of Ireland is not very big, about a quarter as large again as Tasmania, with a population not much bigger than Sydney (4.75 million in the Republic of Ireland with another 1.85 million in Northern Ireland). So it's mainly rural and not very densely populated.
It was unusually warm for October in Europe, including Germany, and Ireland is a very pleasant part of the world, not unlike Tasmania, and in many ways familiar, due to a shared language and culture.
It often surprises our international interlocutors, for example in Romania, Russia or Germany, that Australia is a monarchy. More surprisingly, that our Monarch is not the privileged descendent of an early Australian squatter or more typically a medieval warlord but Queen Elizabeth of Great Britain and Northern Island - who I suppose could qualify as the latter.
Thus unlike those ex-colonial Americans, British Royal weddings are not just about celebrity. To Australians, Canadians and New Zealanders, in addition to several smaller Commonwealth countries, they have a bearing our shared Monarchy.
Yet in Australia, except for occasional visits and the endorsement of our choice of viceroys, matters royal are mainly the preoccupation of the readers of women's magazines.
That women's magazines enjoy almost exclusive monopoly of this element of the National culture is rather strange in these days of gender equality. There's nary a mention in the men's magazines. Scan them as I might at the barber's or when browsing a newsstand - few protagonists who are not engaged in sport; modifying equipment or buildings; or exposing their breasts; get a look in.
But a Royal wedding hypes things up, so there is collateral involvement. Husbands and partners are drawn in.
Sometimes things that seem quite different are, when looked at more closely, related.