Day Four: I Could Tell You, But I'd Have to Kill You. With Strep.

By this time I'm pretty sure I have strep throat. Betty got me an appointment with the village doc, a Dr. O'Connell. I stuck out my tongue and said "ah." He gave me a prescription for five days of amoxicillin. EXCELLENT! Just enough to make the little buggers resistant! I wondered why he didn't even swab me. Is it because he knew I was paying out of pocket, and probably it was strep since Charlie had it, so why bother? Or is it because that's just how chill they are in Ireland? I paid him 40 euro, which is like 60 dollars, and went on my merry.

First we went to the nursing home to see Padraig. I stayed in the car because I wanted to wait until I was not contagious. It wouldn't be very nice to bring a disease from America to all the immunosuppressed nursing home folkios. Jeff took the three kids in and started the process of reminding Padraig, now 93 years old, of who we all are. A few of the oldsters in the TV room asked Charlie what happened to his ear. "I can't tell you right now," he said. "It's a secret."

Then we hit all the local hot spots: Aughnanure Castle, where Oscar made a friend.

 
 
Brigid's Garden, with its wish trees.

 

 
 

 

Good luck to you, buddy. Then we hit Glengowla Mines just before closing time. 

There's a level of detail missing this time around. I can't remember how we did it in 2007. Did we write down where we ate dinner every night? I mean, don't you really want to know whether Summer had chicken "goujons," fish "goujons," hamburger or pasta? (The concept of the kids menu has, unfortunately, made its way to Ireland.)

This time, I was sure I would take fewer photos because the weather was bad and my arms were full of squirmy Oscar, but in fact I took more photos. Go figure.

Comments

[Maggie]

Love the wish trees! Don't love the strep. It gives me flashbacks to going to the pediatrician with your dad in France when I had la grippe. Did you have to take that funky tang-like powdered antibiotic?

[Jill]

Sacre bleu! La grippe!
No, I had capsules.
Do you remember, that doctor in France comped you because your dad is a doc? Fantastique.

[Maggie]

If only insurance were that easy (and cheap) here!