Day 11 ~ Making Plans

I think we stayed up too late the night before. I wrote in my journal that we were awfully tired in the morning! I decided to make a hot breakfast. We generally fended for ourselves come breakfast time. I have to mention that the generic brand of Honey Nut Cornflakes from Aldi was some the nicest cereal I have had in a long time. I'm a big cold cereal lover and had a bowl of this one most mornings. But this morning I made a big feast of French toast for all. Everyone ate and ate and ate! I also sent Keith to the convenience store that was just down the road for some Irish bacon. This is not like the streaky bacon we are accustomed to in Canada. This bacon has the texture of ham yet the flavor of bacon. It's really quite nice.

A chef's entitled to her mess! I loved that big metal bowl of Sinead's so much I went out and got one for myself when we got back home. Ikea!

After indulging in masses of carbs, we decided a long walk was in order. It was all the men and me. It was a cool start that turned out to be a toasty warm day.

All ready to go. We had to shed those layers fairly quickly. Darryl walks incredibly fast so it was all I could do to keep up with them.

Most estates (sub-divisions) are named. There is usually some sort of sign or stone carving or something to indicate this.

Just because I like taking pictures of signs....

We walked a steady uphill pace to a planted forest area. The wild flowers were at their peak.

Darryl's leading the pack....we are trotting behind. Never fear, any and all calories consumed at breakfast were to be burned off!

Nate and I sort of fell behind as I wanted to take pictures now and again. We had to run to catch up!

This was after walking through the forest. I could/would not stop in the trees to take pictures as the flies were horrible. They buzzed around your face and landed on you like crazy. YUCK! One had to walk very briskly to keep ahead of those pesky things. Once we were in the clearing it was such a relief! Chad was smart to ride bike as he could out pedal those flies no problem.

Muckish Mountain. It's flat topped and stops just about where the clouds start.

In the afternoon, Keith and I researched hotels online for our little get away to Dublin we had planned. We wanted to book the hotel on my credit card points so had to get it done today to meet the 48 hr advance booking requirement. We found Trip Advisor to be a really useful tool for that. We also booked a rental car online as well. The plan had originally been for us to use Darryl's car but it was not running well at all, so plan B was put into action.

It was my night to make supper and while I was doing the prep, the rest of the gang played Scrabble in the sitting room.

I had wanted to make stuffed shells for supper but after searching two groceries stores they could not be found. So instead of shells it was stuffed cannelloni. Just as tasty...but a lot more work!!! Everyone loved them so I suppose it was all worth it :)

In the evening we got to experience a wicked rain and wind storm. I've never heard wind howl quite like it did that night. Fortunately the back of the house was quiet (where our bedroom was situated) and we were able to sleep well.