2 days by the sea :)

My parents are in Castlegregory for the week, on holidays and penelope_stone and i went down to visit them on tuesday, just for one night. The crazy thing about going away in ireland is that, even if it's just for 2 days, you have to bring 3 jackets, a change of pants, warm clothes and summery clothes. It's kind of a nightmare for packing because you just have to bring so much stuff because you have no idea what the weather is going to be like. So anyway, we got up early tuesday morning (6:55 for penelope_stone, 7:45 for me), packed up the car with our way-too-much stuff, and headed off at quarter past 8. We got down in good time, got our parents out of bed and went out for a walk. the peninsula has four beaches, all of them excellent for walking along: you have a choice of wading (no thanks - just a bit too miserable), walking on sand, clambering over the rocks or just walking on the grass or road beside the beach. diversity is always good to keep spirits up.

we did a five hour walk the first day, along two of the beaches.

we stopped off for lunch in spillanes (it's kind of an institution by now - you can't stay in castlegregory without going for lunch / dinner in spillanes).

we headed back to the house after lunch,

to take a break and watch some olympics. (ahhh, being on holiday in kerry while the olympics are on - how traditional!)

we went for a walk into castegregory village afterwards - to get biscuits and juice and i got bread because i was hungry, but more importantly - penelope_stone and i got to fly our kites along the beach on the way there. yeay :)

i've not been kite-flying in ages - we just don't get the right kind of wind where i live. that was good fun,

but my eyes were fried by the light of the clouds by the time we reached the end of the beach.

by the time we got back to the house it was almost time for dinner.

back up to spillanes ( i told you it was an institution) for dinner. we arrived early and there was a little confusion with our table (which we'd reserved) but that was ok. dinner was amazing. i got shank of lamb. i was having trouble deciding between a burger and chips (traditional, fun for a change while you're on holidays), cod with spuds and veg with hollandaise sauce (fish at the sea - it's kind of the done thing, and i wanted to do it, but it just didn't appeal completely) or shank of lamb with mash, veg and gravy (now this sounded really good, but doesn't enter into the beachside holiday feel). anyway - i went with the lamb and i was so glad i did. it was the most delicious thing i've eaten in ages and ages. the meat was perfect, the mash was yummy and the veg were veg, but that was ok. all the next day i kep saying "dinner last night was so good." so dinner ended and we went back to the house and then me and penelope_stone went out for another short walk. it was getting dark, and a little cold, but it was still a nice walk.

wednesday: more walks - on a different beach this time,

and across the peninsula.

we brought a picnic along and ate in in the dunes of the west beach. i got really comfortable lying on coats with a sand bank propping up my head and back. it was lovely - out of the breeze, the sun shining on me - wonderful.

but we headed on eventually

back towards the house, overshooting the way off the beach.

so we got to tramp through some dunes on the way back. that was so much fun.

penelope_stone and i found a really big one.

we climbed up and ran back down and laughed and didn't fall and got sand in our shoes,

but that was ok because it was great.

after that we got dinner and then we got on the road home. we stopped in at manor west in tralee. just for a look and a pit stop. we stopped again in kilarney, for tesco petrol. yea. then it was back to life as usual. ah well. it was a fun two days. it was a whole week's worth of fun squished into two days and that totally made it worth it.