In the morning, we received a notice from the tour company
previously mentioned that somehow my mail had been deposited
in the spam folder (odd - I'd used its form), and our
follow-up phone calls had been missed because the principal
had been "sound asleep."

lili and I were fussing about how to get to Newgrange, and
what tour service to use, when M said, okay, the bus to
Newgrange is leaving at 10:30 if anyone wants to get on.
MB later informed us that it's one of M's favorite places.

Newgrange is quite a large monument, certainly the biggest
tumulus I've ever seen; constructed about 3000 BC, it is
one of the most important Neolithic burial sites (and, as it
turns out, solstice-aligned instrument); along with its
sister sites nearby along the Boyne, it offers the majority
of all known Neolithic art; it is said to be Ireland's most
important archeological feature and the oldest roofed
structure extant in the world.

To get there, you go an hour and change north of Dublin;
back in the day (when M was a child), it was considered very
remote, a hill surrounded by muddy cowpaths, but now it's
been developed, with a big visitor center and controlled
access via time-reserved buses. We were given a time about
2 hours away and had ample time to look at the interpretive
exhibits and the gift shop.

Of course, lunch was on the agenda. I had a sausage roll,
one of the cheapest-tasting things I've ever eaten (with
negligible substance other than starch and grease),
followed by a rich and quite good chocolate torte. lili
had better luck with a rather nice pressed ham and cheese
sandwich sided by the obligatory three salads, which I was
compelled to share. MB and M ate various relatively healthy
things that I took no notice of but ruined the effect by
sharing some of my cake.

At the appointed time, you walk across the bridge over the
Boyne to the bus turnaround; then you sort out by
preferred language; then the bus trip takes ten minutes;
then you get an escort to the site, where you are allowed
maybe fifteen minutes inside the burial chamber itself. Ah,
well, there are a lot of people who want to see. Afterward,
you get the rest of the hour to walk around the tumulus,
take pictures, whatever. Then the bus back. Rather mappined
but worthwhile on the whole, and I did get a little shiver
when our escort described the sun flooding the burial
chamber every December 21st.

As M and MB had never seen the site of the Battle of the
Boyne, despite M's family had had a regiment in one of the
armies, we went there. It was a castle with a battlefield,
somewhat picturesque, but the proprietors of Oldbridge House
have desperately commercialized it, which is good and bad.
The bad is that the canteen serves horrendous wine. Actually
the nature and architecture of the development are kind of
dissonant to a historic site, in my jaundiced opinion. The
good is that I learned a bit from the cheesy displays about
William of Orange, who had been a bit of a hero to one of my
high school history teachers, and James II, about whom all I
knew was what I heard in Trial by Jury (see: burglaree).

Back home the same day. Chinese takeout (to please the
younger son, back from his first week at university).