red mum

I was up in Donegal over the weekend working on the byelection taking snaps. Being somewhere as beautiful as Donegal can be frustrating working, as I constantly see things (generally when in a car going from A to B) that I would love to stop and snap, but I can’t, that is not at all why I am there, we are generally running on a tight timetable and the last thing that will happen is everything stopping for me to get a snap. This weekend was no different.

We drove from Ballyboffey to Burtonport as the sun was coming up, there was mist everywhere and the colours and scenery were absolutely stunning. I sat in the back of the car shouting “STOP” to myself as it was never going to happen, not with a ferry to catch.

But every now and again when working like that we have to wait for something or someone and if we are somewhere gorgeous I can grab a snap or two. This happened on Sunday as we got the ferry to Arranmore Island, it was a beautiful, cold and bright sunny day with a wonderfully calm crossing, more pics to follow.

I WAS so tired when I last posted that I forgot to mention a couple of funny things from my couple of days away. Anyway here goes and because they weren’t included in my last post they will probably read somewhat disjointed.

On the North Coast stretch of my trip approaching the Giants Causeway, we noticed a serious amount of campervans and foreign cars all parked along the road coming up to the Giants Causeway. For an awful moment I thought ‘maybe it is full’. Now in hindsight I realise that was a foolish thought to have, the Causeway is massive and there would have to be a serious amount of people there to fill it.

It was when we drove in that we realised, they were tourists parking on the road to avoid paying the €5 car park fee and I thought you mealy-mouthed tight arses. I understand some people will be doing the trip around Ireland on a budget. But seriously one look at these campervans, many which are larger and probably more comfy than my flat. They can certainly fork out €5 to enjoy a 60million-year-old geological wonder.

Certainly the car park was busy but not full and people were coming and going all the time so parking sis not apppear to be the problem. I just thought not paying for the upkeep, the facilities was the height of meanness. A tourist even asked us for our parking ticket when we left. We gave it to them but maybe we should have said ‘splash out €5 Ebenezer’.

The other thing that made me laugh was up in Donegal when my pal Tawdrey’s husband Big S from Manchester came back from the shop in Downings with a copy of Ireland’s Own.

And he didn’t read it all in one go; he savoured it over a couple of days, really he did. He came out with comments like ‘where can you read about the work of Fr Pat Noise (okay I am joking there but there is a profile of some priest in the current edition – check it out if you don’t believe me) to Irish patriots to jokes which were perfect for their two-year-old.

That’s another funny thing, my pal has two daughters a two and a five-year-old and they do this very funny comedy double act where the five-year-old started the joke and the two-year-old told the punch line.

So we spent five minutes teaching her ‘okay darling the joke is what is a hedgehog’s favourite food? The punch line is’. She would whisper ‘prickled onions’. Priceless.

The Downings Festival was also a sight to behold. There are normally pig races with little knitted men on top as one of the attractions but sadly this was cancelled this year much to my annoyance. There was a funfair with three rides, or was that four. Sure everyone loves the bumper cars.

There was the Johnny Cash tribute with an American-accented fella crooning out the hits, then we found out he is actually from Derry.

As those underneath enjoy the music, the woman in the window has a wee cup of tea

The Festival Queen

Enjoying the craic agus ceol

Or there was the night after Sand’s disco Tawdrey and I gatecrashed a teenagers’ house party in their parent’s mobile home before staggering back to our caravan at 6am. Big S said he could hear people banging about the walls of the caravan trying to get to the loo, I think it was me.

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I GOT back last week from a hectic but fantastic week away from Dublin. I started off my bank holiday weekend by going up to Belfast with some pals from Dublin. We did the north coast scenic road up to the Giants Causeway which is a highly recommended trail for everyone to try at some point.

Giants Causeway

While my pals headed back to Dublin on Monday, I headed up to Donegal with the doggie in tow where I met up with another pal.

We had a wonderful week with lots of walks on beautiful beaches, laughs, not to mention the occasional running after a very enthusiastic and happy dog.

The doggie found the travelling hard, not to mention the fact that she got little sleep, not when there was my pal’s beautiful two daughters to play with. So she has been sleeping since we arrived back last night, poor thing. But she loved it all.

She even endured the humiliation of the doggie carrier because she started to associate it with a trip in the car to the beach. I can report the bag itself is a dream and much easier to handle than the plastic animal carriers you can buy.

Anyway here are some pictures from the week, with more on Flickr, and more to be posted in the coming days.

I’m off now cos I am still knackered.

Giants Causeway

Donegal, just outside Downings

Honey at the Giants Causeway

Outside the Giants Causeway

Downings, Donegal

If you look closely you can see the very small child at the left hand side which shows the scale of this beautiful beach called the Murderhole.

Downings bar.

Donegal shirts out to dry, I took an almost identical picture in the same spot about 10 years ago, must hunt that out.

The doggie just loved the beaches.

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