The day began with a visit to artist Cathy Pentek’s home in the country beyond Skibbereen. Coincidentally the house was next door, albeit a kilometre or so further along and on the opposite side of the road, to the cottage we had rented last year when, in the course of our evening strolls,
Lisi and I must have strolled past Cathy’s house several times. Cathy, surrounded by several dogs, was waiting at her
gate for us. She led through her garden, where more dogs joined us as we all filed into the house to find yet more dogs occupying the living room settees and easy chairs. I noticed too a number of resident cats and, as my eyes adjusted to the light, a fine black pig - house-trained Cathy told us - asleep in front of the television. Cathy is an animal rescuer - a kind of latter day St Francis. Shuffling for space with her animals we looked at several of Cathy’s charming paintings, bought one and commissioned some others then moved on into Skibbereen for coffee and cake at ‘Apple Betty’s’.
The Sherkin Island ferry leaves Baltimore at two-thirty. We arrived there at one o’clock conveniently in time to enjoy my favourite Irish lunch, crab sandwiches washed down with a glass of Murphy’s Stout. Sherkin Island, of which, during our few hours there, we saw not a lot is worthy of more time; on our next trip we shall take and earlier ferry.
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| The ruined fifteenth century abbey. |
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