a spoonful of sugar helps...keep the fairies away?

Did you know that people used to put salt in butter when making it to keep fairies away? Well now you do. That tidbit of information was one of the many learnt during my visit to the Butter Museum. Our visit there started as a bit of a joke. The taxi driver who dropped me from the airport on Thursday night pointed it out as we drove past in case I might want to go there. Um, sure, I thought at the time.
Anywho, it came up in conversation a couple of times to the point I decided that I wanted to go see it, even if it was just as a bit of a joke. Donagh suggested riding the hop on/hop off tourist bus, which he'd never done. And wouldn't you know it, the bus stops right outside the museum.
It was a pretty nice day (it would want to be after yesterday) so we rode up top. That turned out to be a bit of a hazard because the bus went under a lot of low-hanging trees. Donagh had to duck a couple of times.
Cork centre is pretty small so the bus route wasn't huge. Soon enough we were at the Butter Musuem. A guy who looked like he could have been around to invent butter let us in. The museum wasn't too bad actually. I found it quite interesting because it talked about dairy farms a bit. Apparently back in the day, to have 10 cows was a big operation. That would have made remembering their names a lot easier.

The view from St Anns

three kids ring the bells

Our next stop was St Ann's church, next door to the museum. I had heard that people are allowed to ring the bells and that's something I've never done so I was keen. I'd heard that the bell ringer just pointed at you when it was your time to ring the bell, but actually there is just a book of tunes with numbers, the ropes are numbered and off you go. We chose 'When the Saints go marching in'. If you are a St Kilda fan and get excited, don't. I only chose that because Amazing Grace and Waltzing Matilda were done just before I got there.
They don't have any standards for the bell ringing. One kid messed up and his mum just said, ok let's start again. Hmmm...wonder what the audience thinks of that.

We climbed the tower, wearing earmuffs as we passed the bells. I've been up a few church towers in this trip but this the first one that had me squatting under a bell to let people pass down the stairs. The view was pretty good too. The city really is quite small.
We popped into the English Market on the way home (apparently the Queen visited there when she was in town recently) and picked up some stuff for dinner. Donagh was cooking a 'fry', which is exactly what the name suggests. Sausage, bacon, eggs, beans, tomatos, mushrooms and my first experience of black pudding. I was wary, just as I was of haggis, but it was pretty good. I'm surprised I didn't have a heart attack half way through dinner. However, I did have to lie on the floor for a bit because I ate waaayyy too much.

That evening Ireland was playing France in a rugby match so after the excitement of the butter museum and ringing the bells it was to the pub...again. Rugby has never really been my thing (AFL all the way) so I didn't pay too much attention to the game. In fact, writing this a few days on, I can't actually remember who won. Continuing with my Irish education, tonight I had to watch a few episodes for Father Ted, an Irish comedy. I'd heard of it but never seen it. Now, I have a high standard for Irish comedies: Black Books. So for Father Ted to impress me, it would want to be good. And it was. It's not in the same league as Black Books, but it's pretty funny. And a good representation of Irish humour...even if it is filmed in England. Apparently the building filmed as the outside of the house is a bit of a tourist attraction. I was close to it when I went on the tour to the cliffs.