Three lads....

.... one's outside.
A busy morning stuffing cards then we went on an adventure! We caught the ferry to Whiddy Island - 10 minutes out into Bantry Bay. I've been wanting to go here for sometime and persuaded everyone else that it would be a brilliant day out! Well it was, and it wasn't. We were accompanied over by three brothers, two of whom are featured here. They were going to visit their first cousin who lived on the island. Their mum had been born here too. They had the thickest accents imaginable but could hardly understand a word I said and wanted to know which country I was from, so it's all relative. Anyway, their cousin wasn't at home so we kept on bumping into them where ever we went. Here we are in the old school house. A very pretty and rather poignant building, still full of the old wooden desks once painted a jaunty blue. Their mum went to this school and they were having a nose around. They asked me to take a picture of them with their camera - there was much discussion how it worked and the lens was truly filthy but I did the business, then asked if I could take a picture too. Behind them is the teacher's desk, still with pencils on it.

Widdy island is a a very strange place. It has the air of somewhere that has been forgotten. It's quite scruffy, hardly an people, lo s of cattle, a post box and that's about it. It does have an amazing Napoleonic battery that son number 1 and I ventured into, This involved running through a field containing cattle, including bull, climbing over a fence which said No Entry, carefully going over a dodgy drawbridge into the battery. It was amazing - the walls were about 20 foot high, solid stone and in the centre were the remains of barracks and a gun emplacement. There were also goats - big white ones which thankfully didn't notice us! it felt very spooky. On our return, the cattle had clustered around the bit we wanted to go to and himself was looking a bit worried! We had to skirt across a couple of fields to get back to him.

Exhausted and weather-beaten, we dined on large pizzas in Bantry. Son number 1 is trying to persuade us to go and see the Inbetweeners - it sounds quite rude. Do I want to know the inner workings of the male teenage mind??? We'll probably go on Thursday.