Front Yard Water Feature

As we walked up the garden path on our arrival 10 days ago we were greeted by a trickle, I say trickle more like a steady stream of water coming down to meet us. This I assure you was not a planned stream.

We know a plumber - always a handy phrase to be able to say and I got straight on the phone to Martin. He is a lovely man, amazingly big hands - not sure what that says about either him or me.

A few days later he turns up to access the situation and say oh right it's a bigger leak than I thought. Let me see if I can locate the stopcock.
I will save you from the saga but to say that 10 days later we still don't know where our stopcock is and a diviner and metal detector has been used.
That's not to say we didn't find A stopcock, but just not ours. That stopcock is sitting proudly in the middle of our garden and according to Martin is probably "belongs to some cute farmer".

A builder is needed to dig up the pathway and that job is remarkably quick, for Kerry time that is. and we find the source of the leak.

More interestingly we discover that we have very old piping which is not ideal. And to make the situation worse the plumbers do not have any fittings to use on this old piping fitting.

A temporary job is done to stop the leak and we now await the necessary part that needs to come from Dublin = the joys of rural living.

The sage continues but hopefully not for too much longer but it goes a long way to establishing our main entrance as the door into the sun lounge.
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And there goes a week - What have we been doing… well it turns out not a lot but enough.

Sunday began as a bright sunny day and since we needed to be at Kerry International Airport for 3pm we decided to pack a picnic, chairs etc and head to Inch beach. Inch beach so called because it a 3 miles long is one of the most fantastic beaches not only in Ireland but up there in the world.

It’s one of those beaches where you can drive onto, park up, get out the picnic and enjoy the views. 

Himself preparing for flight to London

It’s not the first time we’d done this, about 25 years ago when holidaying in this part of Ireland we did just that, only for the car to get stuck in the sand. Despite it being a brit reg car a couple of really nice lads came along and helped get the car out of the sand.

It was therefore with extreme caution and trepidation that we drove onto the beach again. We found a lovely spot and settle down for a couple of hours before heading for the airport.

Having drop himself off for the London flight I drove back to the golf club and squeezed in a quick round of 9 holes.

Monday and Tuesday went in a whirlwind of work as we prepared to finish up everything in time for our holidays. 

On Wednesday Peter was flying back into KIA which enables me to set myself up for a game of tennis in Tralee (the nearby town to the airport) just before his flight arrived.

The view from the viewing gallery... sorry car park at Kerry airport as himself hops down the stairway to freedom in Europe.

A couple of well-known Irish musicians were doing a gig in the Dingle Brewing Co = perfect scenario we felt so we headed off to that with some friends on Friday evening. 

Absolutely brilliant gig, Liam O Maonlai is the lead singer of the Hothouse Flowers and can play the piano, tin whistle and the bowran. 

Cormac Begley is one of the best players of bass, baritone, treble and piccolo concertina and has to be heard to be believed. Together they created brilliant music. Cormac is from a long line of musicians all who live locally.

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First day working from home….albeit Ballyferriter

It’s a small house so two of us settling down to “work from home” was always going to be tricky. It’s hard enough in Beckenham where we have some to make our own but in the wee teach that is Carrigeen it was harder. Not that himself is overly bother, I however have lost the patience to work at close quarters with others and am not inclined to rebuild that strength or skill.

Which meant that by mid-afternoon I was wandering around saying “we are here for 7 weeks so let’s set me up somewhere semi-permanent” And before you know it there was a little shifting of furniture around. 

The smallest room in the house that we’d converted into a study and dumping… sorry storage area had two desks in it.  

The obvious course of action was to move one of the desks to another part of the house and set me up there. Himself had already settled into the big desk and working nicely so the little red desk was mine. 

So before long we had reorganised the study into what now looks like a proper work area with it's very own armchair and we have the ability to print documents. Whilst I am upstairs on the landing with my own desk and am amazing view.

By 5pm himself is finished his days work and if working in London would normally be aiming to

catch the 5.15pm or 5.30pm out of Victoria and heading home. Whereas he finishes up at 5pm and oh look he is home by 5pm.  Into the car we hop and down off to the local beach for a walk albeit a little wrapped up. A glorious walk of an hour along the beach was refreshing for the soul as much as for the body.

It was a busy beach as you can see, although we did spot one other living creature on it, some sort of crow like bird. Not 100% sure what this is and we are thinking we might need to brush up on our ornithologist skills if we are going to be doing this every evening.
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521 miles and 11 hours of driving we arrive

We decided to drive to Ballyferriter for this holiday. Many reasons, remind ourselves how long it was, going for 7 weeks one needs a lot of stuff and we had some nice memorable items from my Mum's flat that we wanted to keep as well as a couple pieces of furniture that would come in handy. Therefore taking the car made sense and once we gathered all the items together we thought oh la la that's not all going to fit in the car and we bought a roof box.

The roof box purchase was a little bit of a saga, these things always are when you purchase it from eBay, the seller is Mick's Garage in Ireland and they tell you they are out of stock when you make the purchase. But sure not to worry they'll get it too you.  We waited and waited and they were extremely nice keeping us informed and we waited. Then as we leave for a long weekend in Ireland they announce it will be delivered tomorrow. No problem we thought there's no way the delivery driver will leave a roof box on our front drive when we are not home.

To be fair he didn't leave it on our front drive but with our neighbours across the road. I knew this because Soon Mui texted me to say they've taken in a delivery for us. Aagghh I say oh dear that was not meant to happen and can you hold that huge enormous box in your hall way until we are back in 4 days.... The lovely people that they are they said yes. When chatting with her afterwards turns out the driver had knocked on her door and asked could he leave the box with her and she thinking it was just a normal box said sure of course. It was only when she saw him dragging the large box up the drive did she think, umm maybe I should have said no.

Monday morning, we'd stayed over until the Monday so we could go to the Mens final at Wimbledon. Monday at 6am we hit the road and before we know it we are zipping along the start of the M40. In fact about an hour and ten minutes after setting off. And the rest of the journey is just as smooth and before we know it we are on Anglesey with a few hours to spare.

Anglesey is a place that one would normally zip through, it is Wales after all. But with 2 hours to spare and a coast road we thought lets explore. The weather was fantastic and beaches busy... not.

It made for a lovely way to arrive at Holyhead for the boat but all the more difficult to cope with a busy boat with many noisy screaming kids who were clearly hyper after a holiday.

Arrival in Dublin at 7.30pm and into the flat by 8pm.

An early start the following morning and off we headed to Ballyferriter. And 521 miles later and 11 hours of driving we were opening the gates, parking up and unloading the car.
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A short weekend in Ballyferriter

And we buy a PowerCaddy

We’d spent three weekends at home which was unusual and had a fourth free so we thought, let’s check out the flights to Kerry International Airport and if they are reasonable sure why don’t we head over there.

The result is that on a lovely sunny day we are zipping across the Dingle peninsula. And before we know ourselves we are in Garvey’s supermarket stocking up for the weekend.

On Friday we decided to make a day trip to Tralee. Tralee is a large county town, pop about 23,000, and has seen better days. And one of the reasons it has seen better days is that the centre has been ripped apart by out of town centres, dotted around the ring road. And in one of those out of town centres is a new McGuirks Golf shop to which I drag himself.

I say drag, I don’t really have to drag because he is getting a present, a new golf trolley, a new PowerCaddy no less. Gone are the days when we bought each lovely and expensive jewellery now we are buying lovely and expensive golf equipment. He himmms and hawes over whether he wanted a PowerCaddy… I pottered about the shop, came back, he is still thinking about it and he is not even the one buying it. The sales chap was no better, in fact he could not even assemble the trolley, “oh they are only new in and I’ve not used one”. Peter then says, oh let me think about it and the sales guy says “sure that’s no problem, we have a sale coming up anyway with 15% off so you could always come back. How to close a deal....not.

We have coffee, another mull over the idea and head back to the golf shop and I’m thinking we’ll be here all day. I corner another sales guy and say “I hear you have a sale in a couple of weeks with 15% off”, he says “oh maybe, we not sure of the exact %”. I say, fine, we cannot make it back for the sale. He says the discount might be available online. I say “well if you fancy doing the deal today, right here and now we’ll buy that PowerCaddy with the 15% discount. And like that himself has a PowerCaddy.

Getting a Golf Handicap

We joined the local golf club and one of us already has a handicap to play, that’s how well organised the women are, no surprised there. Whereas the men are still asking Peter for more score cards and what better excuse then to head out for a round of golf. And in fact for the first few holes he plays

very well, in fact too well and when I mention that this level of golf might affect his handicap he immediately drops a level.

The golf course is looking in splendid condition. There were a number of competitions on over the weekend, including playoffs of county matches which created a lovely atmosphere in the club.
All in all an extremely enjoyable 9 holes of golf, card signed and put into the office for the calculation of a handicap.

Sunday morning and a walk on the beach

It proved to be the perfect time to walk on the beach. We are absolutely determined to walk on the nearby beaches most days. It was one of the key reasons to be near the sea and there is nothing more relaxed, calming and energising that a walk. 

This is our local beach, Bail Ban, and it is a little gem. There are nicer beaches around but it's easy to knock of 5,000 steps strolling along here.

Our next challenge is to cycle there, its about 2km and then walk.

A Drive Around Slea Head

One of the choices as we leave Dingle to head to Ballyferriter is whether to drive around Slea Head. I am sure there'll come a time when that choice is not longer exciting. For now driving back to the house via one of the worlds most beautiful drive is still exhilarating. We decided to do it this weekend because as the summer season reaches its heady heights in August the road will be jam packed. 

As you round one bend this is the view (on a clear day) that greets you. Truly breathtaking

Further on around the drive you come across Coumeenole Beach. One of the most iconoc sites on the Dingle Peninsula, Coumeenole is a popular stop for travellers on the Slea Head Drive, providing dramatic views of the Blasket Islands. 

One of the filming locations for  Ryan's Daughter, the currents in the water here make it unsafe for swimming.

It is also an haven for surfing and despite the signs not to swim or surfing there'll always be people in the sea. If you visit it is a must.

You can find out more about the other beaches of Dingle here. 

Caife Na Tra

Time for coffee and we'd heard about Cafe na Tra, which is the Irish for Beach Cafe. It is in Dunquin, and right on the edge of the cliffs. 

An enterprising person has set up tables and chairs, baked lovely cakes and scones and opened a cafe.

On days like these we had to stop and enjoy the views.

Well worth a visit.

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