Monday 12 August 2024: Blarney Castle

On our last night in Cork we had Italian for tea. They only had chocolate puddings, though, so we passed. I’m not keen on chocolate puddings anyway, but when those were also the ONLY kind of pudding on offer, we both chose to pass and have a snack in our room. When we got back, we packed so we were ready to check out the following day.

Checkout was 12 noon, which is a really good checkout time. It meant the poet was able to take part in 2 meetings from our room, and then another meeting in the hotel foyer. He did some admin work too. Then, because we still had a couple of hours to spare before we had to be at the airport, we checked our luggage in behind the hotel reception desk and booked a taxi to take us to Blarney Castle.

It was a lovely afternoon, brilliant sunshine with a gentle breeze. We didn’t have time to queue to see the Blarney Stone itself, but we did explore the grounds and visit a lot of the feature gardens. Blarney Castle was a hunting lodge, apparently, and not a fortress, although the lord of the manor did take an army to go and support Robert the Bruce in his defeat of the English at Bannockburn.

We saw the castle itself, although we didn’t queue to go inside, the Seven Sisters standing-stone circle, a couple of magic water gardens, the Blarney and Martin Rivers, and we snacked on toasted ham & cheese paninis and strawberry iced jam ring doughnuts. There are more photographs on the poet’s phone, but I’m saving those for the newsletter. The image at the top of today’s post is one I took on my phone.

A taxi took us back to our hotel to collect our luggage, but he wasn’t able to take us on to the airport, so we had to book and wait for another. We still got to the airport in good time, though, but the plane was 30 minutes late already when we got there. It only ended up 30 minutes late, though, and we got in at Manchester 30 minutes after our original ETA.

It was already getting late by then, but we wanted to get ‘over the hill’ before eating, just to put the bulk of the trip behind us. Then we stopped and had a McDonalds, bought a pint of milk and some chocolate tea cakes from the petrol station next door, and finished the last lap of the trip.

Saturday was a bit of a rush as we wanted a small lie-in before dashing off to do the weekly shopping. Monkey Dust had a gig on Saturday night and we had another longish drive to get there, so we didn’t have a lot of relaxation time. The gig was great, though. A former venue of the band from Bradford sent a small contingent over, who drove 112 miles there and back.

We also saw Son #2 and his partner (who I refer to as Step-Daughter-In-Law #1 as we’ve known her longer than Sopn #1’s current partner), who arrived literally a minute before the band went on. We had a great catchup and I showed them the pictures of their dog I’d taken when he came to stay with us. They booked us again for a fortnight in November, and possibly a week in September – but this one will depend on when I’m having my allergy tests.

On Sunday, the day was spent pretty much in the garden, despite baking heat. We did quite a lot, though, but I’ll go into more detail on Thursday when I reboot the OUR GARDEN THIS WEEK blog.

I’ve also rebooted the SECRET SUGARHOLIC blog, which you can see here. This really is a warts and all diary of my last-ditch attempt to kick the sugar habit. Son #2 asked me how I’d stopped drinking alcohol, and I said ‘just like that!’ with a snap of the fingers. I really wish I could stop the sugar-troughing with a snap of the fingers too.

If you’re interested, it will all be there every Monday, and you can slim-along with me if you want. I’ve already added it to the schedule, and the gardening blog too.

Back at work today and I have a lot to get through before heading off to the dentist…See you on the other side!