It can be quite boring looking at a slew of someone else's vacation pictures, so I'll try to keep this short. After clearing out of the cottage at Ballymaloe, Charlene and I headed to west Cork. A few hours later, we were at the town of Skibereen, where we stayed for three nights in a charming 19th-century farm house. It is still an active dairy farm with about 80 cows. Skibereen and the surrounding area was hit particularly hard by the potato famine in the mid 1800's and we learned as much as we could take at the Heritage Hall in town. Sunday we had beautiful weather and we drove over back roads to Bantry. The scenery along the way was lovely.
We toured Bantry House, which is owned by a descendant of the original Earl of Bantry. Dressed in a sharp blue blazer, he was manning the reception desk for self-guided tours while keeping an eye on his grandson, who was in a baby carriage in the entryway. Although the inside was fascinating the outside gardens were just starting to spring out.
And the view from the top of the Hundred Steps was special.
From Bantry, we drove about 20 km to Glengarriff, where we took a ferry to Garnish Island and then strolled the lovely Gardens of Ilnacullin, which is like a national park.
Monday was dreary with rain, but we had a great time in the nearby town of Schull (pronounced and sometimes spelled Skull). After strolling through the town and driving along the nearby coast, we had a wonderful time visiting with one of the students from the school, Marie, and her husband, Michael, at their lovely holiday home near Schull. She cooked us a delicious curry dinner from one of the recipes from the school. I relaxed and drank quite a bit of great wine, so Charlene drove us back to our B&B. I think she handles this "wrong side" of the road more easily than me.
Our final vacation spot was the harbour town of Cobh, which used to be an important port of call for cruise ships, including the Titanic.
In addition to visiting shops, taking in the Cobh Heritage Center, and playing a little golf, we visited the Fota House and Gardens and the Fota Wildlife Park. Charlene drags me to zoos, but thus was different. You feel like you are right in with the animals, which in some cases you are.
Here only a thin electified wire separates Charlene from the big animal. Nothing separated us from the kangaroos and lots of birds and small animals.
By one of the ponds, a mother duck wandered through our mist with about 15 very little ducklings. They surrounded a little boy and his mother and the little boy was somewhat frightened and stepped onto the wheel of the carriage that his mother was pushing. I watched in fear that he would fall and crush some of the ducklings, but thankfully not.
Before the flight home, Charlene did her miracle work and managed to pack everything into our suitcases; and we had no overweight charges. I managed to strain my knee at Cork Airport when I realized I had forgotten my passport in the safe in our room at the airport hotel and chased after the shuttle bus It didn't prevent me from doing miles of walking in Chicago O'Hare, where cancelled flight and an unplanned overnight delayed our arrival back in Albuquerque. Both Charlene and I have colds and I'm waking up for the day at 2 a.m., but all this will pass eventually.
I should probably end the blog here, but I plan to update my evaluation of the school and living in Ireland. I know that some of you will want to know how I did on my final and, although I don't expect the news to be good, I'll pass it on when I get it. In the meantime, I'll keep smiling with my memories
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