When is a Fruitcake not a fruitcake...

Sometimes days come along when you laugh from one day to the next and a recent weekend with some "old" friends was one of those. The laughs began late on the Thursday evening, their arrival being slightly delayed by Ryanair and continued throughout the weekend.

In preparation for the visit of these friends himself had been cooking and baking. Cooking a Ballyferriter Bourguignon, making homemade sausage rolls & cooking breaded chicken for our Blasket Island picnic and baking

a fruitcake.

The weather on Friday morning meant the trip around the Slea Head drive was shrouded in fog and mist resulting in a somewhat different view that we'd be talking about. But it is the west of Ireland after all and you cannot plan on the weather behaving itself. This meant we had lots of time to check out the pubs of Dingle before our meal and music.

Into Dingle we headed for a first stop at Kennedy's for their regular Friday evening "Rush Hour Jazz". It is the most amazing pub and a must try for anyone visiting Dingle, however it was slightly packed on this Friday evening which meant we were standing in the corridor to the toilets. A space that got busier as the hour went on = the weak bladders of Dingle contributing to the flow so to speak.

But rest assured there were other choices, and we popped across the road to a newly reopened pub called McCarthy's. I am a little lost for words on this one, but will just say it was all a little weird. By now we were due for our dinner reservation at Ashe's restaurant. Warmly greeted by the owner all I can say about the meal was WOW. Expensive but amazing. The starters was fantastic and the main courses brilliant and everyone had super food - can't ask for more than that. http://www.ashesbar.ie/

We finished up in enough time to pop into The Mighty Session, yup another Dingle pub, for brilliant music from Niamh Barry and Meabh Begley. Niamh plays the fiddle and Meabh plays the accordion. Without reading from any music they played for over two hours, communicating by just the nod of a head or eye contact. https://www.facebook.com/The-Mighty-Session-453152138078290/

Saturday saw the sunshine out which was just as well as we had booked to take the ferry to the Blasket Islands. If you've never heard or know about the Blaskets it is hard to describe and the guests were setting off on this trip with just a little wonder as to why....

And we are pleased to say that the island didn't let us down.  A brilliant trip, tour of the old village and a picnic on the beach.

The picnic, was a success, the sausage rolls delicious, the breaded chicken scummy and the salad excellent. Then we got ready to round off the picnic with rose and fruitcake.
The fruitcake was perfectly moist although maybe slightly lacking in fruit.
As one friend said when replying to Peter's comment "oh it could do with more fruit", "is it suppose to be a fruitcake".

We managed to fit in a visit to Gallarus Oratory - a 6th Century building that was more impressive than it might sounds.

We met some friends as well...