A Blaze of Autumn Colour. Apple Delights.

Saturday is shopping day, the day we get our essentials from the Farmers Market in Boyle, to us that means a ham joint and whatever other meat we may need and don't produce ourselves, this week we will  have beef stew with our own veg, spaghetti bolognaise, boiled ham, Sunday roast this week is shoulder of pork, all supplied by Deidre our Organic butcher. Her meat is superb and we can eat it with a clear conscience knowing that it has been produced by animals who live their lives free ranging on organic land and feed on Organic feed. It shows in the quality, and none of it is expensive, the farmer is named and the meat rarely travels more than fifty miles from where it was produced.

We had a great surprise in the market today, one of the Organic producers who we have known for years had apples, both cooking apples and eaters, I have been trying to find these for several weeks now after having made the mistake of buying conventional Bramley apples in a local store, I should have known better as although they were supposed to be Irish they were far too early to be this years crop, probably last years and kept in cold store, plus the skins felt like wax, no doubt some nasty chemical coating them to make them appear fresh.

Although it was a wet morning we decided we would visit

Forest park in Boyle to catch some of the wonderful Autumn colours, which this year seem more vivid than usual.

As we had our helper, Mico with us we showed him Boyle Abbey, plus some of the beautiful loughs we have in this area.

 We are somewhat mystified as to the purpose of the glass walkway at Boyle Abbey, and once again the entrance was closed , again we have been foiled  to walking around the Abbey, one day, maybe, we will find this Abbey open to the public.

From the Abbey we proceeded to Forest Park to enjoy the lovely colours of Autumn,

then onto Lough Arrow and the Abbey at Ballindoon,

there are still swans a swimming, they seem to have taken up permanent residence.

Back onto the N4 and the viewing point over Lough Key, again a blaze of colour.

At this viewing point there is a very large metal statue of an Ancient Celtic Warrior. It is a beautiful work of modern art.