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| Mrs Brodies Victorian B&B at Stirling |
Mrs. Brodie cooked us yet another Full English Breakfast at her B&B in Stirling and we headed for Glasgow at the break of day, leaving our car and jumping a flight to Belfast.
From there we rented another car and drove to County Tyrone to the small city of Omagh where Robert Nichol was born in 1830 and his father William John in 1792. So far, despite the IRA bombing here in 1998 which killed 31 people, its a friendly town and we are in a B&B for a couple nights while we look at graves and search the public records.
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| Omagh, Northern Ireland |
On British Plubing, Heating and Electrical: If you come here, do not ask for directions to a "washroom" if you need a toilet. A washroom or bathroom will only have a sink and/or a tub or shower in it. If you need to do your business, you must ask for a toilet or a loo.
In older stone and brick buildings, plumbing and wiring were an after-thought and many switches are in the ceiling with a pull string (even in new homes!). British plug ins, with a hole pattern about four times the size of ours are mounted more at the convenience of the electrcian than th end-user with seldom more than one or two per room. Showers are heated by a plastic box mounted inside the shower, plumbed so the cold water runs through an electrical heating element and you set the temperature and flow on this box, provided of course you pulled the string to the switch mounted on the ceiling before you entered the “washroom”. Toilets are often served by a macerator pump located against the wall with a ½” copper line delivering cold water and a ¾” line taking waste away. The tank on the toilets that we are used to is often hidden in a wall somewhere and it can be a bit of a search just to find the flush handle. Hence all the signs asking one not to flush anything unusual like sani-pads, condoms or toy cars down the toilet. When you do find a wall switch, it’s nothing like ours and unlike North America, you push it down to turn the lights on.
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| Old Barn near Omagh, N. Ireland |
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| Steak & Guiness Gravy at Sally O'Briens in Omagh N. Ireland |
