A Trip Over To A Beach On Mizen.

Myself and J and our canine friend drove over to Mizen on Tuesday afternoon.  This is is the last Peninsula next to ours in the Southwest of Ireland.

We drove through Schull and Goleen to Barleycove.  The parking is free and there are no real facilities but it's relatively quiet and a nice place to pass an hour or so.

Google photos reminded me we visited Barleycove this time last year.  There must be something working in my subconscious to visit in June?🤔

It was a nice way to have a walk and look at the sea.  Not that I don't look at our bay every day!😊

Pictures From My West Cork Gardens In June.

 I couldn't think of much to write about so I have had a week blog break.  This morning I walked around the gardens and the flowers were displaying their Summer dresses in all their glory.  Thanks flower girls!

Outside the kitchen door.

Pink Cranesbill Geraniums flower and come back every year.

Valerian self seed and this one's growing in a mortar between the paving stones at our front door.

Osteospermums growing in pots.  I made lots of cuttings of these last September and we have many plants putting on their Summer floral display.

Pot Noodle Gardening..

 No I haven't invented another Prog group name.

Regular readers will know I like recycling stuff.  Here's a plant pot I made from an old Pot Noodle container:

I got a grown up😀 to help me puncture a drainage hole in the bottom and filled it with compost and one of my Catmint rooted cuttings.  

The plant isn't bothered about it being in an old Pot Noodle container.

Three Years Ago.

I've finished working on the island now.  Only the other day I was looking on my mobile phone on the ferry to work and I noticed good old Google had sent me a photo or three of what I had been doing three years ago this week.

Myself and an old friend had met up at Bristol airport and travelled by train to Dorset and Thomas Hardy's fictional Wessex.  It's on the blog search of this blog.  We visited film and book locations and three former houses where Thomas Hardy dwelled

We walked many miles and even visited Shaftesbury (me and the black Labrador picture) and Jude The Obscure book locations and Gold Hill where the famous Hovis adverts were filmed.

The sun shone and we stayed in tents and visited the wonderful Wetherspoon's pubs and drank copious amounts of English real ales.  We also took in a day at Wimborne Folk Festival and we went to see Blackwater County play in the Paddock on a lovely hot Summers day and sampled some pints of Ringwood bitter.  It was a really enjoyable and educational trip:

Here's a picture of Blackwater County.

I love this band with their Irish, folk, punk style of play:

My Octopus Teacher.

 Someone I worked with recently recommended that I should watch: My Octopus Teacher on Netflix.  It's an incredibly beautiful and moving documentary about an Octopus in a kelp forest and a diver.

To digress for a paragraph or a second.  I was standing at the pier waiting for the ferry last week and two work colleagues and I were watching Jelly fish close to the harbour wall.  I asked one of my workmates what purpose did Jellyfish serve?  He wasn't sure!

That night I asked Doctor Google and I read that they don't have brains, eyes or a heart and are made up of ninety five percent water.  They eat plankton and fish eat them.  They are all part of the food chain and all creatures play a part in providing food for every living creature.

That's the same  message I get from the documentary.  It's incredibly beautiful, poignant and sheds a light on the world under the water.  It's excellent!

Christmas Shopping In June.

 Regular readers will know we're always after a bargain or three.  Today (Saturday) we went looking round some charity and found some Christmas cards in cellophane.  Three packs for 1 Euro.  

We couldn't resist our inner Womble and duly bought them:

Have you collected any Christmas presents bargains yet?

A Garden Visit To Muckross.

 We went to Muckross in Killarney on Sunday  morning.  Muckross House, Gardens and Estate are in Killarney.  Car parking and the estate and gardens are free for everyone to enjoy.  

Queen Victoria once stayed in the big house and it is said she put tourism on the map in the Southwest of Ireland.  It's another place we never tire of visiting for it's beauty and spectacular gardens and scenery:

I met an English sounding lady sat reading a book overlooking the glasshouse and we talked about where the walled productive kitchen gardens would have once been.  Then she told us about a spectacular walk to see the Rhododendrons in all their glory.  A lovely lady, day and gardens and a good time had by all!