Back in Ireland

Settling In

September 8, 2011 · Filed under Uncategorized · Edit

Well we at last returned to Ireland, the journey did not go as planned due to the vets in Galicia not doing the pet passports correctly,resulting in an additional two day stop over in France, an brilliant French vet put right everything that was wrong, but we had to travel via the UK instead of directly from Brittany to Cork, all in all we were delayed by three days, not much fun for the poor animals, ten cats and three dogs, they however seemed less stressed by the whole thing than the humans.

We arrived to find the garden was doing well, no sign of blight on the potatoes. Since then we have lifted the first of the potatoes and are trying to find time to lift the rest. We now have our hens, three Jersey Giants, three Buff Orpington and a couple of Goldline who are now laying. The veg garden is doing well, we planted lots of cabbage type plants given to us by friends, the swede and parsnips are doing fine, the only failure has been the carrots. We brought with us in May some raspberry cane and blackcurrant cutting, both are doing well and the raspberries even gave us some fruit. We even had two Victoria plums from the tree that we had planted in May.

The house is lovely, we have now had the loft space insulated and a woodburning range installed, this does all the hot water and central heating plus the cooking, there is very little else that we have to do here, no more renovations thank goodness, just basic stuff, like book shelves, fitted wardrobes and a sun room. Hopefully giving us time to enjoy ourselves.

We now have the polytunnel frame work up and are waiting for a calm day so we can get the cover on, hopefully I can get some stuff planted in there to over winter.

I do wish we could say that we are missing some aspect of Spanish life, but apart from the friends we have left behind we don’t miss it at all. Being back here is rather as though we have had an extended holiday and are now home.

We have immediately become involved with an anti- fracking campaign, which although probable will not affect us in our area certainly will affect a number of our friends, and if allowed to go ahead will destroy some of the most beautiful parts of Ireland. Once again it seems as though money is the master of all politicians, they seem unable or unwilling to use their brains