Over the hills . . .

Yesterday morning, close-packed marble size raindrops falling heavily on the roof-light above my bed brought me to another day of consciousness.  It seemed to be a day better suited to driving than exploring local lanes on foot but by mid-morning when we were ready to leave the house the rain had ceased and warm sunshine beat down from a large patch of blue sky.

Back in May, when we were staying near Skibbereen, Lisi and I met there artist Kathy Pentek and each of us left her with a commission; one painting for myself and several for Lisi.  Yesterday, dawning inclement, we chose to drive across the peninsular to pick up our commissions.  I had left Kathy with a more or less free hand, my only constraints on her imagination being that the painting should have something to do with my birth-sign; Capricorn.  Kathy’s painting delighted me.  I can but be amazed at how an artist, having spent no more than an hour or so with a total stranger, has managed to produce a painting which has created so much impact on my senses; in a way, I see in this painting a fractured mirror of myself.

The mid-morning sunshine did not endure.  In swirling mists under a heavy, grey, marbled sky, sharing the landscape and road with no more than downs of insouciant sheep, we drove over the gorgeously spectacular Healy Pass.  Concomitant with the heavy rain earlier in the morning was the gushing, streaming, seeping lattice of mesmerising waterfalls and rivulets flowing down and over steep hill and mountainsides.

The three hundred metre high Healy Pass is named after Tim Healy, an early governor of the Irish Free State.  Previously called ‘The Kerry Pass’ the road was built during the famine years of the nineteenth century by poor relief workers.

The cottage at Drombeg

On Saturday morning Cellphone, Sat-Nav and Lisi with her map guided me easily through beautiful wild mountain countryside to Joe McCarthy’s house on the outskirts of Ardgroom.  Joe, to be our landlord for the coming two weeks, manifested as a genial smiling character who immediately led us in his car through twisting west of Ireland lanes to a distant corner of his farm on which stands the cottage which we have rented from him.  After very comprehensively settling us into the cottage Joe left us appreciate the beauty of the cottage and its breathtakingly beautiful location.  The two storey stone-walled, slate-roofed cottage, Joe told us, was built a hundred years ago by his grandfather.  During the twentieth century the building had fallen into disrepair until, during the nineties, Joe restored and renovated the property to create a comfortable two-bedroomed house suitable for holiday letting.  The cottage, a gem of a building, excellently restored and re-fitted is but nothing compared to its location on rising ground overlooking stone-hedged fields, Kenmare Bay beyond which rise the Kerry mountains.  There is no noise pollution here; peace, almost tangible here, is disturbed only by the music of rain on the windows, the song of the wind whistling around the house and the call of the Curlew.

The Dingle Peninsular

Cliffs, Dingle peninsular, Ireland

At around three hundred and fifty kilometres, the road journey on Thursday from Lough Key House to Moriaty’s Farmhouse at Ventry was, by my standards, a longish drive.  Lisi and I left Frances’ wonderful B&B about ten o’clock and arrived, after an uneventful drive through pleasant countryside, by-passing en-route the cities of Galway, Limerick and Tralee town.   Late in the afternoon we arrived at Moriaty’s Farmhouse.  Brid, our landlady, welcomed us by name which, as we were her only guests, would not have been too much of a problem for her.  The custom in Ireland seems to be for B&B hosts to offer tea and cake or scones to new arrivals, Brid followed the custom and when I asked where we might find an evening meal nearby she recommended to us to ‘The Skipper’.  Brid was right, it proved to be a very good venue for supper.  A few kilometres along the lane from the B&B, ‘The Skipper’ is an unpretentious but excellent fish restaurant.  French-born Paddy, its chef and owner, came to Ireland with his parents seventeen years ago when they decided to move here from La Rochelle.  I ordered pan-fried Brill under a Chanterelle sauce served with plain boiled new potatoes and a simple fresh mixed salad; a quite unexpected and delicious treat.

Abandoned village, Great Blasket

Friday dawned partly cloudy, promising improvement.  After a good breakfast we set off on a short circular tour west of Dingle.  The craggy scenery along this deeply indented rocky Atlantic coast is outstandingly picturesque.  Five kilometres off the coast are the Blasket Islands.  The history of these islands, uninhabited since the 1950s, has been very well documented by some of its late inhabitants; Tomás Ó Criomhthain, Muiris Ó Súileabháin and Peig Sayers have become literary legends through translations of their tales of life on the islands

into english and other languages.  Near the tip of the Dingle peninsular there is an impressive, purpose-built ‘Blaskets Centre’ which houses a comprehensive exhibition of everything to do with the history of the islands.  I spent a long time at the centre but to have closely examined all the exhibits I would have needed to be there much longer.

The Dingle Peninsular Tour beyond the western tip, the north coast, is scenically less dramatic.  We rather hurried along that part of the route to get to Dingle with enough time to explore the town.  Dingle is attractive but has, inevitably I suppose, been degraded to attract the easy tourist buck; there was something about pretty Dingle that seemed, to me, to lack authenticity.

In the evening I returned to Paddy’s ‘The Skipper’ restaurant this time to try (authentic!) fresh scallops in brandy cream sauce which I enjoyed quite as much as I had enjoyed my fish the previous evening.

Summer 2013, a review.

Caveat depascor!  Rather than being something that may interest my blog followers, this post has been written as an aide-mémoire to myself.  I shall be editing it as and when the records and notes I have made in many places come to light.

Burgundy, June 2013

My drive home in June from Ireland through Scotland, England, France and Italy was slow and comfortable.  I stopped frequently and, in France and Italy, found several B&Bs which were new to me and, in their originality and differences, interesting.

Tiled bathroom at amazing B&B:
'Il Torchio, Calco, Italy

By 27^th June I was home in Greece.  I had been away for two months during which much had happened around the house.  Seeds of all manner of plants, unseen when I left in April, had germinated.  Plants, largely unwanted weeds, many of them huge had, in hot wet spring conditions, grown set seed and were now dying for want of water.  Deep-rooted perennial plants had put on incredible growth; vines, just budding when I left, now drooped new growth heavy with leaf to make drapes of shade below balconies and across the steps I needed to climb to reach the door into the house.  But for a light layer of dust, inside the house was much as I had left it.

I had not been home many weeks when the first of my visitors arrived; my elder daughter, her partner and their two young daughters.  Two and half weeks later they all flew home on the plane on which my younger daughter and her three children arrived to stay with me until, on 20^th August they left with me to drive back across Europe to be in the U.K. by  Friday 30^th August to attend the wedding of Tom, Lisi’s second son, to his fiancé Kate.

The wedding service, held at one o’clock in the chapel of Wren’s Naval College at Greenwich, was memorable for both its setting and content.  During the afternoon the new Mr and Mrs Palmer treated their guests to cream teas on a chartered boat trip up river to the pool of London and back.  By early evening we had returned to the Naval College where the wedding banquet was held in the fabulous, ‘Painted Hall’.  The day finished with a wild party in the vaulted space below the ‘Painted Hall’; it was a day I shall remember!

I spent most of September drifting around in the U.K.  The week after the wedding I spent in a ‘Mobile Home’ on a pleasant site near Canterbury after which I travelled, with Lisi, to Lincolnshire where we house, dog and hen sat for her sister and brother-in-law while they took a short holiday in Florence.  From Lincolnshire we move on to spend a week in Derbyshire thence to Scotland to visit my own sister and brother-in-law and to visit The Helix, a project being overseen by my eldest nephew.

Work in progress building Andy Scott's thirty metre high sculptures at The Helix, Falkirk, Scotland.

Last Wednesday, free for a while of family commitments, we returned again to Ireland, driving as quickly as possible across the six counties to reach Carrick on Shannon late in the afternoon.

After a tasty early supper at the ‘Oarsman’, after an interval of almost four months, we arrived back at ‘Lough Key House’, to tea and a wonderfully warm greeting from Frances.

Big bed, Lough Key House, Boyle, Co. Roscommon, Ireland

   

Sunday 9th June 2013

Lough Key House, Boyle, Co. Roscommon. Ireland

Arriving on Saturday evening, I slept the night in this comfortable country house B&B.  I had spent much of the afternoon in and around Carrick on Shannon showing Elisabeth the many places I had visited a few weeks previously when I attended there the John McGahern seminar.  In town I renewed my acquaintanceship  Orlagh Kelly at her splendid ‘Reading Room’ bookshop and to eat again in the superb ‘Oarsman Gastro Pub’ a few doors along the road.

This morning Elisabeth and I had to make an early start for the drive up to Larne from where we took the midday ferry for Cainryan, Scotland for me to begin my drive home to a long hot Greek summer while Elisabeth took off from Glasgow airport for the cool of her summer in Iceland.

Before the end of this year, however, Ireland, The Reading Room and Frances McDonagh at Loch Key house will see us both back again.

Friday 7th June

Friday 7^th June was the last day of a delightful  sojourn in the cottage I had rented for a month at Knockanoulty, Baltimore, Co. Cork.  In the evening Lisi and I left for an evening drive to the delightful Derrynaflan in County Tipperary where our host Sheila O’Sullivan welcomed us warmly despite our rather late arrival.

As with most B&Bs at which I stay on my travels it would have been good to have stayed longer at this lovely place but, if I was ever to reach home, I had to press on with my journey, adding Derrynaflan to my lengthening list of places to which I hope to return.

5th June: Cathy Pentek and Sherkin Island

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.

The ruined fifteenth century abbey.