Long Strand

I'm blipping from Cork airport on my return home from another wonderful trip to this wonderful corner of this wonderful country of Ireland. The time seems to have passed so quickly, but we also seemed to have packed a lot in. This morning we took a drive out to Union Hall and then on to the stone circle at Drumbeg. We were rather disappointed to find some people there already, armed with surveying equipment, somewhat spoiling our hopes of getting some atmospheric photographs. It turned out that the chap doing the measuring just happens to be a leading authority on stone circles in general and the foremost expert on this one in particular. His passion for ancient history was positively infectious. We learned a lot but now we want to know so much more. It was actually a remarkable bit of timing.

From there we drove around the coast via Long Strand and Red Strand, enjoying the most beautiful milky winter sunshine, which warmed the soul even if it didn't do much to warm the body. Our last stop was in the charming little town of Clonakilty for a chilled lunch at De Barras, famous for its folk club (everyone who is anybody on the folk scene seems to have played here - with a thousand photographs on the walls to prove it), before TJ dropped me off at the airport. Our goodbyes are definitely getting harder!