The Island where they're never 'closed for lunch'!

Well hello again,
I’m back from my holiday in Ireland suitably refreshed and ready to go again.

We had a lovely time; the weather was very Irish and very coastal. i.e. changeable at a minutes notice – that’s the coastal part. And quite wet, apparently that’s what makes Ireland so green the rain, hence the title The Emerald Isle.

We weren’t touring this time (see September 08’s entry) and stayed mainly in the Dingle area of Co.Kerry in a lovely holiday home owned by Elaine Begley
http://www.holidaylettings.co.uk/rentals/dingle/45770
If you’re looking for somewhere to stay in the area, I can’t recommend Elaine’s house enough – it’s was beautiful.

Dingle is famous for its wild Dolphin who permanently resides in the bay – Fungi. http://www.dodingle.com/pages/fungi_dingle_dolphin.html

We went out on a boat trip to see Fungi – well worth the money, the children (& the adults!) loved it :-)
We seemed to spend a lot of our time on boats while we were there – we also went over to visit an uninhabited island called Great Blasket. This island is the inspiration for the novel I’m in the process of writing and researching at the moment.

Last year on our travels around Ireland in the dustbin on wheels (sorry Kamp-Easi motorhome) we parked overnight looking out towards it, and from a conversation between my husband and myself about whether you could successfully live on an island, sprang the idea for a new novel.
So this time I really wanted to go over and visit the island for myself, and I was not disappointed.
From the moment we set sail in the boat it was almost like I was living the novel out there and then. We were skippered safely over on our short crossing by a rather handsome young Irish chappie, who held my hand as he helped me out of the boat and safely onto my fictional, yet now very real Island. (Ok, he held everyone’s hand to help them safely ashore, but give me a break I’m a romantic author & there is a point to this!) My point being that in my novel my heroine, Darcy, first meets her romantic interest, Connor, when he too takes her over by boat on her very first trip to the island – so how apt was that? I mean we could have got some old crone called Seamus with three buck teeth and a lazy eye to take us over!

The island itself was probably a little more desolate than the one in my novel will be, but again in another strange twist of fate as in my own story there were men there beginning to restore a few houses ready for people to inhabit again. I suspect holiday cottages – not as in my book for people to live in for a year. But now I’m starting to give too much of my story away...

But in our short time there we saw lots of stunning scenery and met lots of lovely wildlife - seals, sheep, puffins, and some wild donkeys – who were incredibly tame, and it gave me much inspiration, which was the general idea. So watch this space...

Oh if you’re a regular follower of my blog you may remember King Puck? No, well he’s a gentle hint ... Yes we actually stopped this time in Killorglin, the place where they crown a Goat King every year & I got you photos.

And my favourite thing that happened the whole time we were there?
We went into a shop one day to buy our lunch about one o’clock, it was one of those places where they have a deli counter where they make fresh rolls up to your own specification. Well after we’d stood and waited for about 5minutes, debating what filling we were going to have in our baguettes, we were informed by a helpful assistant serving in another section of the shop that they were.... wait for it.... yep you’ve guessed it ‘CLOSED FOR LUNCH!’

Ah, the Irish, you gotta love em ;-)

Until the next time,
A x