Stone Fences, Iron Gates, but no Moats

Monday June 4th
Gort, Ireland (stealth in Coole Park)
35 miles
Chilly but sunny, so we'll take it:)

We've noticed a lot of large homes under construction (and built, just like back home) but the construction has stopped. The homes are big, just like back home. A closer look today showed that there's no inside insulation on that cinder block and the floors are cement. It's gotta be cold! For heat it looked like hot water radiators on the walls.



And every house has a stone wall to the road and an iron gate. Mini castles one and all! Asked someone today about the fences and he said it was because "the lazy farmers can't keep their animal home".

Facetimed my daughter, Dana, this afternoon. It worked well. Maybe next weekend I can Skype with Avery (older daughter). It was pretty cool. The town of Gort had free wifi from EirCom right on the street. That's how wifi should be...EVERYWHERE FOR FREE! It's pretty frustrating because when we do get to a town and I get some wifi, poor Fuat is just hanging around while I scramble to upload my blog, get emails, write emails, check Facebook, etc. He's quite patient but it is a bit awkward. It's in the evening that I have down time and then we're in the "woods". I'm not going to get on the internet much this trip, I can tell.

We visited William Butler Yeats' Thoor Ballylee, a cottage and tower near a stream. But of course, it was closed. Then we came on to Coole Park, the estate of Lady Gregory, a friend and patron of WB Yeats. But alas it was 5:03 when we got to the Visitors' Center and you can guess what time it closed:/. So we went into the Walled Garden and saw the Autograph Tree with many "famous" autuographs of yore including the Lady Gregory and WB Yeats. After cooking a dinner of rice, onion, raisins, cashews with cinnamon and tossed salad, we decided to "stay after hours" and cycled up into the woods to camp for the night. In the morning we'll go get the free scoop at the Visitors' Center and roam the grounds some more. Her house no longer stands, but there are stone remnants of the stables and pigeon roosts. Stone, stone, stone...everywhere and everything is made of it...yesterday and today!

Oh ya, for lunch today we sat in an ancient graveyard eating our brie and bread and apple. Then we met the most charming farmer hanging over the stone wall telling us how he farms up bog to dry it and heat his home. He had a lot of tales to share and all with a brogue that was almost impossible to understand. I did get a bit of video of him, but that's on my camera not my phone.

I did shoot a bit of video of the countryside with the cows and sheep and stone walls. Hope it uploads easily. (Didn't upload. I may try to upload it separately.)
I've been having such ease of loading my journal this time, I don't want to mess it up.

The solar charger is working if I plug my phone in directly to the panels, but I tried to plug the phone into the battery pack and it says it's an unacceptable power device, or something like that. So I"m good as long as the sun shines. We'll just see how it goes.

And that's all folks...

BagLady


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Drying Laundry in the Rain

Sunday June 3rd
Rain!
34 miles and one flat...

Poured rain ALL night! Fuat's tent held up well and we were quite dry in the morning. We've also brought a tarp (one EZ Duzit found last spring when we were hiking the AT and gave to me - putting it to good use:)) and put it up to cool under. Worked well and made packing up in the rain a bit easier.

Most of the morning it was raining but not too heavy. I had to laugh when I saw many times laundry out on the line. Some of the houses are quite large (McMansions of Ireland), and I was thinking they'd do better to have one of those rooms as a drying room since it rains so much here. Even in Hawaii where it rains a lot, people would have places under cover to dry their laundry...especially since you just never knew when it would start raining and you might not be home to get it down.

Fuat had his first flat today when he hit a pothole. He's lucky he didn't go down. We were in a town and he was looking around and BAM! Thank goodness for The Cozy Kitchen for hanging in while he fixed it.

Cold and rainy is only tough when we stop. While biking it's those minor adjustments to keep my body from overheating: hood on..hood off...mitts on...mitts off...jacket zipped...jacket unzipped...pants rolled up...pants rolled down. I'm a busy woman!!!

Sitting now in pub having hot chocolate and Triffle & Custard & Cream. Yum!
Too bad the free wifi isn't working. Wifi is turning out to be hard to find. This is rural Ireland!

So no power and no wifi...BagLady disconnects...begrudgingly:(

Stopped for the night between Kiltormer and Mullagh, just southwest of Ballinasloe about the middle of the country (for anyone trying to follow us). We'd been wandering down all the small country roads we could find. They are so narrow, but there are few cars and the views are spectacular. Quaint Ireland! But we can't figure out where we are on the map(s) and often just turn according to the compass. No hurry. No place we have to be. We'll get to the west coast eventually:)

When Fuat said he was ready to look for a place, he had pulled into a building parking lot. We looked around and found a lane just past it that led to the grassy fields behind a Montessori school, The All Stars Montessori School, in fact. And there's a shelter for our bikes with benches for sitting and cooking. Bingo! Life doesn't get any better than this. Luckily tomorrow's a holiday or this wouldn't be such a good option.

Took a walk down the lane to see the sheep out grazing in the pastures. Just as I imagined Ireland would look. So pastoral! We have horses whinneying, sheep baaing, and cows mooing....ahhhh...bliss! So much nicer than last night's campground. What was supper, you ask? Reconstituted refried black beans on tortillas with slices of avocado, zucchini, red pepper, and cheddar cheese! With "digestive" biscuits for dessert with chamomile tea steeped right from the dried flowers we got at at tea shop.

Stopped to get some water late this afternoon and the guy in the little shop said he didn't think I sounded American. I said Thank You! I said as an American, I never heard anyone tell me that they liked my accent. He said, "and you're not going to hear it from me, either!" "Well, I do like your accent!", said I.

And it's time to get warm and comfortable for the night.

BagLady

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone