More Hosting, Less Posting

It's been a bit quiet round this blog lately on account of real life impacting upon my cyber-existence (I know! How dare it? The Nerve!). Hot on the heels of our visit from the Silverwoods and the swap out of ducklings for baby chickens under 'Old Mother Hubbard', comes a week long stay by 2 very good friends from my Kent days and the Thames Sailing Barge world, Dave and Julie B. For these guys a first visit to Ireland so we were keen to 'do it right' and being also mad keen fans of all things traditional-sailing-work-boat we knew we could score some strong brownie points by taking them to Kinvarra to see the Galway Hookers. We made a good day of it too, coming home by our favourite Scenic Route, nipping through Galway and Spiddle but then up through Connemara via Casla, the 'other' Kinvarra, Maam Cross, Maum, Lough Corrib and Cong. It never disappoints and yesterday in the patchy sunshine it was bright with the orange Montbretias, meadowsweet and purple "wild" fuchsias growing in the verges and hedgerows. The mountains did their lovely colour-changing thing as the fluffy cumulus clouds blew through and the rangey, leggy, be-horned mountainy sheep were on hand to populate some lovely photo-opportunities.

The tide was only just starting to come in at Kinvarra so there was no hooker-sailing activity but the sun was warm and Liz laid on a gorgeous picnic on the harbour grass. This week high tides were at 0600 and 1800, so not a lot of use, but we were joking with Dave that if he comes back next year we'll consult the tide tables before picking a week, and maybe try to coincide with the hooker races (mid August) so he can see some sailing action.

In other news we have now taken delivery of our 4th and 5th lambs for this year, having decided that the grass is long and lush enough to support the 5, rather than just our first three. Kenny delivered these last night in his big 4-wheel-drive and trailer. Our first three were around the 27 kg mark when he brought them, these are rather heavier, at 33-35 kg but they are the same approx 2 month old and weaned off their Mums. Our mission is the same as last year, to get them up to around 50 kg on a mixture of our grass and a supplementary feed called 'Fast Lamb Crunch' (a mix of corn, cereals, molasses etc).

Kenny was tied up in the evening with a guided farm walk, admiring some Belgian Blue cattle, so it was not till 23:30 that he arrived, so we had to do the unloading in the dark with torches. The new two are a ram and a 'yow' lamb and we have named them Dora the Explorer and 'King Unicornio' just so that we can enjoy saying that these two irritating kids' TV characters are dead and in the freezer. Sorry little Robyn Silverwood (5), I love you madly but a bloke can only take a certain amount of American nasal-voiced squeaky-clean cartoon TV shows and we need our grown up jokes sometimes. Just be grateful these are not (Peppered) Pig and Postman Paté.

The new lambs are now settled in nicely and good mates with their former brothers and sisters and they even came over for a bucket feed when the 3 old-hands did so this morning. I had 2 of the old stagers eating out of my hands this morning, which is good progress in the charm offensive.

Ah well, more 'hosting' today, as we take Dave and Julie to the Museum of Country Life up in County Mayo.

John and Carol

Our visit yesterday from John and Carol went really well. They are lovely people, easy to talk to and fascinating to listen to and I think I can safely say we have made some good friends there, all be it we will not see them very often as they are based in Chippenham (Wiltshire in the UK). They had stayed overnight at their camp site in Cong, deciding not to move about too much due to the cold wind, but instead to base them selves at Cong and work outwards from there. They have quite a sophisticated set up, trailer tent, cooking facilities, sink with pumped water, warm and cosy etc, so much so that they declined our offer of a stay overnight. They had come from Cong (to our west) relying on sat nav which had somehow found them a route via Moyne village (east of us!). They had then driven past our door without knowing, and phoned us from Lisacul village, back west of us again.

We are similar age and interests so the chat ranged around over a big variety of subjects including 2CV escapades, the North of France and WW1 sites, the Normandy beaches and then on up into Yorkshire. Both of them hail from the lovely village of Slaithwaite which we know from narrow boating as the village where the canal runs up next to the high-street tarmac, between the house and shop fronts. See also my post on this blog from July 26th 2011 on http://deefer-dawg.blogspot.ie/2011/07/nurse-screens.html . They grew up together there and met while working in one of the local factories. John has had a fascinating life having worked for a while in textiles including running an angora rabbit fur processing plant (!) as well as working for Intel, the computer chip makers) and spending some time in Co. Mayo, which is how come he is now bringing the Bath 2CV club 'raid' over this way.

They were intrigued by our own move, the house renovation and the small holding. They had a good look round the house and the garden. Liz's food was a great success; we had cheese, bacon and chilli biscuits as a snack, then an Easter inspired slow-roast lamb with plenty of veg (I did my roast potatoes) followed by a lovely chocolate mousse in which 'floated' mini chocolate eggs. They had arrived bearing gifts including a lovely yellow rose plant for Liz, and we sent them off with half a dozen of our lovely eggs. They were here from about half twelve till gone 6 and we enjoyed every minute. For entertainment, just in case they'd get bored, neighbour Una had a go at setting light to some trees so we raced round there at one stage to play fire-fighter. Never a dull moment.

Thank you for coming, John and Carol. We will see you again when the Raid happens (May/June) and I hope we can now be firm friends on into the future.

High and Dry in Kinvarra

 On Saturday 18th we return to Kinvarra hoping to catch some Galway Hooker racing as part of the traditional boat festival, "Cruinniú na mBad" (Gathering of the boats, or 'Harvest' of the boats). Only having seen the harbour last Thursday at half tide, we do not appreciate how low the tide goes or how the water all drains away leaving the harbour as acres of rocks and bladder wrack. High tide is promised for 6pm and the boat racing and events on Saturday start from about 4pm but we thought we would be able to see a few coming and going, jilling about in the harbour or practising. We'd left home at 10:30 and were there around midday. Not a bit of it. Everyone is high and dry. Dad takes a few picture of the hulls and rigging, some from walking about on the rocks and sea weed. I get a nice run around among the rocks hunting out crabs and nasty dead sea things to roll in.

Dad wondered if we moved further down the Kinvarra Bay to a place called Parkmore Pier we find some water and some boaty activity, so we re-load into the car and drove the short distance to there. Here there was one Hooker swinging at her moorings but still no activity. Never mind - this looked like a good place to take pictures from as it was near the narrow bay mouth and the boats were bound to pass close by. Easy range for Dad's 400 mm 'pap' lens.

At this point we gave up on Kinvarra for the day and decided it was way too early to head home, so we'd go home the scenic route back through 'the other Kinvarra' (See 2 posts ago), Connemara, the Maamturk Mountains and Cong. This time it would be Mum's turn to drive so that Dad could drink in the scenery but we had also brought a picnic, so we'd find a scenic spot and get out the metaphorical hamper.

This is just an awesomely beautiful drive and even in the cloudy change-able light it still took our breaths away. The picnic we took at the top of an inlet where the peaty stream emptied into the sea under a lovely stone bridge. There was a slipway, and I could have a paddle. The drive was as quiet and traffic free as before, with only a few rangey mountainy-rams with curly horns and the odd creamy coloured Connemara pony for company. Only at one point we were driving down a steep twisty lane following a dodgy looking tractor which pulled a livestock trailer and a smaller trailer with wobbly wheels 'in train'. The livestock trailer was open at the back and seemed to be stacked to the roof with bags of turfs, some of the bags threatening to avalanche out of the back. Perched in the back was an old guy leaning back on the load as if to keep it from falling and although we couldn't hear a word he was saying and presumably neither could the tractor driver, his jaws were working away as if he was having a right old swear up rant. Every so often he would cling to the side of the trailer and try to keep his balance while adjusting the position of a tumbling turf sack. If the whole rig made it safely home with the winter fuel we'll all be amazed, Mum sneaked a chance to overtake, not wanting to be stuck behind that lot and ferrying the poor bloke to hospital if it all went pear shaped.