To The Beach & Back

Fabulous Sunday morning lie in - bush friends, perhaps don't read the next sentence and if you do, I'm sorry in advance....................I only woke up at 09h30 and it was lovely!

For the most part, I tried to do as little as possible the whole day which wasn't especially hard - my housemate Niamh and I wondered to the shop to buy a Sunday paper and later in the afternoon the four of us made roast kuku and veggies for early supper, and then we headed to the beach at Ballycotton, to a pub called The Blackbird where we'd heard there was to be live Irish music.

We set off just after 6 for the "gentle stroll" to the beach - the local guidebook had described the walk as being 2 miles, it was actually 3, bit of a case of rounding down I think and the road is very narrow with no pavement or shoulder so we had a few very intimate moments with the hedge on the way when some crazy driver came haring around a corner in Formula 1 fashion. Still, it was a lovely walk and the coastline was gorgeous, huge views of the Atlantic, wide stretch of sandy beach, a small island just off the coast and then the cutest pub - settled myself down very happily in a cosy corner with a pint of Bulmer's cider and waited for the music to start - the "session" kicked off at about 20h30 and it was just fab, musicians coming and going, joining in ad hoc, some folk-style music and then the proper Irish music too - as the Irish girls from school said, " it was good craic"!

We managed to talk our way into a lift for the trip back with one of the other students who'd bought her car - wasn't feeling quite up to the return 3 mile, hedge hugging trek after 2 pints of cider, if nothing else I was unlikely to make it the whole way back without needing to pee!

Back to the kitchen tomorrow morning, I'm making another blasted tart but it's a whole new week and hopefully the pastry part of my brain will actually show up and make a bit of effort..................

Niamh, Natasha, Claire and me sadly with my head in the way, sorry!