We found a cute little abode named St. Arnaud’s Mews. It’s actually a small house built on the back portion of the owner’s lot. Picture a long block of row-houses (all stone and built adjoining each other), each about two-rooms wide, 2 stories high with very deep lots. Those are the owner’s houses. There’s an lane to allow access to the back yards. Now build a 2 bedroom house on the back portion of the lot, facing the lane. That’s the mews house.

What is a Mews house? Seems that originally, the man of the manor would keep his falcons in coops or pens behind the manor house. The falcons, as they were molting, would make a "mewing" sound. Hence, the falcon living area became known as the Mews. Later, the Mews became the stables and carriage houses, but retained the name Mews. The grooms and male servants were usually housed in rooms attached to the stables, and later the stables and rooms were converted into homes, or Mews houses. So I guess what this means is that we lived in a stable!

The lane we live on is fully lined with these small houses, except for the multi-apartment building right across from us. The good news about living on an lane is that it is very narrow and has no through traffic, so it is relatively quite. We have a garage for the bikes so they are kept locked up and out of the weather. Places with garages are difficult to find, so we were very lucky to have found this place.

The house itself is small, but sufficient. It has a master bedroom and bath downstairs (with a closet off the bath for the washing machine & freezer). Upstairs there is a second bedroom, bath, living room, dining room and kitchen. The kitchen we refer to as the "toy kitchen." It’s obviously a lot smaller than we are used to – about 7’x9’. One wall houses the refer, oven, dishwasher and sink, with a small counter-space over the refer and next to the sink. The other wall is where the table-for-2 sits with its folding chairs. There is minimal cupboard space and one drawer. Good thing we didn’t bring much in the way of kitchen things! As you can see from the picture, Jim pretty much fills up the kitchen. The kitchen is a little longer than the picture shows, as the refer is not shown.

And, don’t forget the small garden in back of the house! It’s not much, but it is a nice view from the bedroom and did allow Verna to play in the dirt a bit, planting bulbs and annual flowers. We really enjoyed our time in Dublin and especilly enjoyed “our little house”.  The most important part, of course, was that it had a garage! That was our most important requirement coming in. We were actually very lucky to have found the garage with such a nice house attached!

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