Day 10 ~ Grianan Ailligh

Day 10 marked the half way point of our holidays. We had seen so much already and knew there was so much more to see as well. That being said we were all losing a bit of steam. It was a rather dark and dreary day so the men took all the kids to the indoor swimming pool. I don't have any photos as we were told that taking pictures at the pool is frowned upon. I can understand that completely with all those perverts out there. You just never know I guess. Anyhow, the kids had a great time despite having to wear bathing caps! The pool is fairly new and has two waterslides which kept them all happy for hours.

Sinead and I stayed home and enjoyed baking together in the kitchen. I made some lemon yogurt muffins and Sinead made a very rich and divine chocolate cake. The afternoon turned gorgeous (as the weather is prone to do!) and we had a hard time believing the forecast was for more rain the next day.

Darryl made us a delicious spagetti dinner and then we packed everyone up to head to the 'fort'. I really didn't know what we were going to see but happily pulled out my camera, ready for the next adventure.

We climbed a winding road up a fairly high hill to come to a car park with this sign at the start of a short path:

Oh my...the history! When I think of Trethewey House in Abbotsford being our sort of historical piece I just laugh! This was old....REALLY old! It felt very surreal being to a site with such an ancient feel.

This photo was taken from the car park area.

The kids running up the fort. They were pumped for some exploring.

This is looking back from the fort. The views were stunning and I really could have stayed there for a very long time just looking at it all.

Entering the fort.

It was a 360 degree view of five seperate counties. There is no way to capture the beauty of it all on film or video.

Looking into the interior of the fort.

It was quite cold and windy up there!

Every which way you looked....amazing views. Ach! I wish you all could have seen it for yourselves.

After we were sufficiently cold and wind blown we headed back down the road to town. Sinead needed to check the post for her aunt at her old stomping grounds in Knocknamona Park. This was the home she had lived in for the past 10 years. I had seen photos and heard about this house for so long that I was really keen to go and have a look around for myself. Her aunt now lives there part time but wasn't there at the time so we could nose around a bit. It was almost surreal to see the house for 'real' when I'd seen it in photos for so many years. It was smaller than I imagined it would be too.

After that we popped across the street to just say 'hi' to her old neighbors and friends. I had heard about Stephen and Geraldine and their daughters for ages and ages and was just thrilled to be able to put a face to a name and meet these good friends of theirs. They were just so welcoming and hospitable to us. They certainly would not hear of us just popping in to say hi and had us come in to have a good visit.
As you can see Liam is also enjoying the crisps that we were snacking on.

Stephen makes a mean gin and tonic and we were all relaxing quite nicely at this point. Someone...not sure who...got a genius idea to get the kids all home and to bed so we could stay and have a proper night of socializing. So it was decided that their teenage daughters, Tori and Alice would go home with the men, get the babies to bed, put the kids in front of a movie and stay to babysit while the men came back with Sinead's chocolate cake! Weren't we brilliant?!

We had a great visit in their cozy living room. As they would say it was great 'craic'. We left about 1 am to find the babies just waking up for their middle of the night boo-hoo. Perfect timing. We paid the girls, took them home and called it a night ourselves. It turned out to be a very nice day.