Friday 9th May
The only day to rain all day was today and it’s my birthday!
I had a lovely lie in. My breakfast cooked for me, my
Solar Return chart drawn out and a lovely card drawn
for me. Thank you Teen. Linda gave me a card, a yew twig,
a triple spiral magnet and read my Solar Return chart.
It was 1pm before we left the campsite. We went and had
lunch in a parking layby on top of a hill with a view
but because we were in drizzly mist there was no view.
We tried to go and see a stone circle but gave up when
we couldn’t find the farmer to ask and there were lots
of cows in the wet and muddy fields. We went back to
camp and rested.
In the evening, we went to Boolies which was an excellent
a la carte restaurant. Absolutely divine food. I had crispy
duck with caramelized orange and a raspberry sauce. Soooo
delicious. Then Tina had secretly arranged for a cake to
be made for me which was also divine – strawberry, sponge
and cream – very light and not too sweet. Yum yum yum.
After talking to the owner for ages (a famous musician)
we went back to the van and carried on celebrating. A lovely
ending to a lovely day even if it did rain. It was just
a rest day.
This morning, I got talking to an old guy who was painting
the campsite toilet block. I said to him that I found it
strange that there were so many brand new grand detached
mansions with pillars. Apparently, people had been given
EU grants to do up their decapitated cottages and had just
bulldozed them away and built new ones that did not fit
in with the countryside environment. Some cottages were
left standing, slowing becoming ruins. A lot of them then
sold up and made a fortune. The guy told me that the people
that had bought these houses were now in so much debt trying
to pay up to €3000 (about £2500) a month in mortgage rates.
Lots of people were in trouble now. Apparently, the housing
market has been in a decline for 18 months and in that
time some houses had lost €100,000 in their value so people
were getting into negative equity. He said that people
couldn’t remember the 1950’s when there were poor times
and they never thought there may be poor times to come
but now it’s here. We had noticed a lot of FOR SALE signs
and FOR AUCTION signs and had wondered why. These new mansions
were so over the top with their multiple pillars. On one
little country lane there was a cul-de-sac of about 10
huge detached mansions absolutely massive, their garages
were bigger than the house we live in! So out of place.
Anyway, it seems that the recession hit Ireland before
England..
Fore
Saturday
Had the worst night’s sleep I’ve had since being away.
The stove was too hot which can usually be easily remedied
by opening the doors. However, there were so many midges.
Luckily, not biting ones but there were so many of them
you could hear the beating of their wings. We were in
a massive swarm of them. When I got out of the van in
the morning, they were in my mouth, nose and eyes. Full
on. We decided to pack up and leave. We were driven away
by the sheer quantity of insects. Still, warm and damp
– perfect for them. Thank goodness they didn’t bite as
we would have been eaten alive!
We spent the day at Fore which was lovely. An old ruin
of a monastery which had been set up by healing springs.
A very tranquil place out in the Irish countryside I had
had the remainder of my birthday cake which made me feel
a bit sick so I drank lots of water, sketched and climbed
the hill, all distracted me temporally. A Nux Vom homoeopathic
remedy soon sorted me out. We drove back to Slane and the
first campsite which feels like home! It’s such a relief
not to have swarms of insects. Now we’ve got the noisey
crows and the noisy donkey! Anyway, off to bed as we’ve
an early morning. If the weather is good we’ll be going
back to Knowth and the Baltry Stones before heading south.
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