Boolteenagh

Another gorgeous day, bright, crisp and quite chilly - it was snowing in Manchester when I skyped my brother this morning. We pootled in the morning then decided on a walk after lunch. We did the Coomkeen loop - starting high up at Boolteenagh.  The walk takes you down a lush valley with some old houses, then up a Board of Works track onto the ridge where the most enormous views open up. Here we are looking across Bantry Bay to the Beara peninsula, that's Whiddy Island in the middle where the national reserves of oil are kept! It was warm in the valley and blowing a hooley up here. The colours were amazing - swathes of yellow gorse and white blackthorn, and we heard choughs and larks and saw a mountain hare. Boolteenagh, should you be wondering, means place of the booleys - it's called something else in Scotland but its the same as transhumance when you bring the cattle up in the summer and take them down in the winter. There are even little booley huts up here, pretty spartan. It was pretty busy, we passed 9 others up here over our two hour walk.
And inspired by Ceridwen , I have just made a spanakopita - mainly spinach but a handful of greens from the garden too. Very good it was too, washed down with a glass of prosecco.

Hares on the mountain - I've linked to the Irish version of this before but this is also rather good