Before and after the storm.

Anticipating a spell of bad weather in the form of hurricane Ophelia we decided to take advantage of the calm before the storm and once again headed in the general direction of the coast, however we decided to take a road that we didn't know.

When I say road it was more like a country lane.

Before long we found ourselves climbing, the road was getting steeper and even narrower that it was at the bottom, we weren't  even sure that it would lead anywhere but we were more or less headed in the right direction to the coast and the scenery was spectacular.

Unfortunately it was a bit dull, the sun wasn't playing ball but I still got some nice shots.

One thing I am very good at is spotting plants, this trip was no different, I had spotted a black thing growing on the grass verge, Simon couldn't see it until he nearly stepped on it.

He recognized it as a club fungi. Once we got home I looked it up, it seems that club fungus is a very large family, and without doing a spore count it's hard to tell which one it was, besides we had not picked any. My best guess is that it was a Black Earth Tongue. It's the first time I have seen this particular fungus, so I was happy to add it to my list of spotted plants.
Eventually we found ourselves on the outskirts of a town, although we didn't immediately recognize it. It turned out that we were in Ballina, a place that we thought we knew well, just not the mountain end of it.

Rosserk Abbey. 1460.

Wanting to get a glimpse of the coast we headed out to Rosserk Abbey to eat our picnic, this is a place that we know well and have photographed many times, so I only took a couple of shots of the Abbey. Although our trip to Ballina took twice as long as our normal route it was a detour that was worth while.
We escaped the worst of the storm, no loss of electricity or internet, other people have not been so lucky. Three people were killed and there are still over 100.000 homes without power, there are also many people with no water. Despite the warnings given about the storm there were still some idiots that thought it would be fun to go swimming, luckily they didn't get into difficulties.
Today as the sun was shining we once again headed for the coast, this time to get seaweed, we knew there would be plenty after the storm and we weren't wrong.

It was the easiest harvesting ever.

Twelve bags were filled in ten minutes.

As it was such a nice day we headed further along the coast, expecting to see lots of big waves,

however it was fairly calm,

with just a few larger breakers.

It seemed that we weren't the only ones who enjoy seeing waves,

a cow decided that her field wasn't interesting enough and took herself for a walk along the old lime stone pavement, I hope she got back to her field alright as the lime stone is quite slippery.

Out and about.

Organic Centre contemplation tunnel.

Now there's not quite so much to do in the garden we have been able to make a couple of trips out. The first one was to Ballina, a bustling small estuary town in Mayo.

The river Moy runs through it, and it is one of the very few places that has a wet fish shop, in fact Ballina has two of them but the second one sells things other than fish so we stick to the specialist shop. We make this trip once every month or so to stock up on good fish. Also in the area are several ruins of ancient Abbeys or Friaries.

The one we visited last week was Rosserk  Abbey, some describe it as a Friary,

I'm not too sure what the difference is, this was built around 1440 by the Joyce family, and was the home to Franciscan monks until around 1590 when it is reportedly burnt down by Sir Richard Bingham, 1st governor of Connacht under the reign of Elizabeth the 1st, no doubt trying to curry favour with the English court.

Like most of these buildings it sits in a prime location on the banks of the river Moy, it is doubtful if monks of this period ever suffered hardship given the positioning of so many of these wonderful old monuments. Good land, and plenty of fish from the river.

Possibly an old harbour?

In an adjoining field you can just make out the remains of walls which would probally have been part of the Abby, possible a small harbour, as it is a tidal river at this point. We sat and enjoyed our picnic,

watching curlews foraging for food, 

and then  were joined by a friendly Robin waiting for tit bits.

The next trip out was to the 'Organic Centre' in Rossinver Co. Leitrim for the annual Apple Day. The weather could have been better, and the service or rather lack of it in the café left a lot to be desired. After waiting almost an hour for our food order to arrive we gave up and asked for our money back. By this time we were hungry, so decided we would have a barbequed burger, the barbeque was well advertised on the web site for the Organic Centre so naturally we assumed that the burgers would be organic beef, especially at a fiver a throw, it was only when I spotted cheese slices that I asked the question! I don't care if the meat came from the local butcher and from his own cows, this is the Organic Centre, supposedly a flagship for the 'Organic Movement', I for one do not expect to be served anything other than organic food in such an establishment.

Nice pumpkins.

Tomato tunnel.

We did a tour of the tunnels,

Such lovely colours.

even these were not as good as usual, they should have been overflowing with produce at this time of year, ours is.

Lots of grapes, and they are very tasty.

 Maybe they have had a change of management or the centre is now being run by committee,  whatever, it is not as good as it was just a year ago. Very disappointing. We did however come away with two bottles of freshly pressed apple juice, which was yummy, and a large bag of organic apples. Who would has guessed that the humble apple when grown non organically is subjected  up to thirty five times spraying with fifteen different chemicals being used, and 'they' wonder why there are so many people suffering from allergies etc. just look at what is added to so called whole food.
Now that summer is over the pottery classes are back to weekly, I haven't planned my next project yet, and the next class is tomorrow, possibly playing around with different colours and effects,

Before firing.

 you never know how an item will turn out once it's been fired, the colours change completely.

after firing.