Stairway to Heaven

Had a very relaxed and delicious supper with two friends last night. We ate at our place then then we headed up to their place for a game of post dinner ping pong. Himself has never really played and had mixed feelings about the whole thing. Annabel took him off to explain the rules and break him in then we had a very vigorous bout of  doubles - the best of 5. Fuelled by a large meal and several glasses of wine the going was fast and ferocious, us girls just piping the lads at the post!

Just back from a fantastic walk with BAT . It was on her patch and great to walk with someone who knows the area so well. The forecast was for torrential showers but we decided to risk it and only got seriously wet once, and sheltered in an oak ringed fairy fort. We walked through a landscape rich in stories and jostling with ghosts. We saw children's burial grounds, standing stones, little wells, a bridge once blown up the IRA, crossroads where dancing used to take place, and derelict homesteads. I was looking longingly at one old house  - Bat knocked on the bungalow next door, one of her neighbour's, and we were allowed to have an investigation. It was an old farmhouse completee with haggard (yard) and outbuildings, built in the 1880s and the doors just closed on it in the 1970s and everything remaining inside and being allowed to gently decay. The doors still retained their delicate paintwork - painted to look like fine timber. Cobwebby paperbacks slotted  in shelves going up the stairs. The old blue range still looked jaunty despite one door hanging askew. A rusted frying pan still hung on the crumbling stone wall. Faded floral curtains hang in tatters. The oilcloth runner still clung to the staircase.

We walked on and up onto the mountain, high above Bantry. We were joined by a local farmer for the last bit. He knew every blade of grass, every stone, every monument and had lived here all his life.  The last of his family, he now lived alone on the farm. I found that rather sad.