More shopping, more rain, and the ghost ......

DAY 9 – August 11th

Another day of Irish mist; however, we needed to head out for a couple of groceries, so finally made our way to a small town nearby “Charleville”, went to the post office for stamps (George remarked “how quaint”, and I suppose these days it IS quaint when you can send and receive mail around the world in a matter of minutes), and then to the Dunnes store for what we thought, supplies. Mom had other ideas and spent an incredible amount of time doing, guess what? Yes, indeed, more shopping – I don’t know if I’ve ever known anyone who can take full advantage of whatever offering there might be and actually turn it into a shopping trip … I’m thinking food (salmon for dinner) and some basics, George is thinking food (potato farls, soda farls, and sausages for a proper Irish breakfast for tomorrow), and mom, well, mom is just shopping. I do confess that we bought a few towels to make our transitions between home exchanges a bit easier, but shopping, well, no. After a bit, quite a bit, I found my long-suffering husband a place he could sit down while we waited. We eventually left the store to be greeted by more rain.

Once home, George decided he’d set and light a fire – as it turned out, a great idea, but not all the same – the fireplace we’d used 4 years ago appeared to either have a stuck flue or a blocked chimney as the smoke would not go up, but instead just drifted into the room. I raced to the other fireplace and grabbed the scuttle into which we piled the burning, smoking wood and took it outside. Then, rather than settling down into a nice warm room, we threw open windows and doors and allowed the remaining smoke to clear out. What then happened to the wood in the scuttle we have no idea – George came and asked me if I’d dumped it (which I hadn’t), but regardless, it was gone. You’d think, well you daft twit, OF COURSE, it burned ……….. except it was absolutely pouring rain. Perhaps the ghost didn’t care for the smoke …………

We leave tomorrow for the Westport area (via Cong – where we will be stopping for dinner at Ashford castle), and don’t know if there will be internet available, so, if you don’t hear from us for a few days, you needn’t worry……. just no connection.