Farewell to Ireland

The Devil's Chimney walk, Sligo

Dearest, most lovely, Emerald Isle,

We're so sorry. We love you - God, we love you.

It's not you; it's us. Really, it's true - I'm not trying to spare your feelings. Besides, what good would that do? You've been all we could think to hope for, perhaps even more, but that was so before we came along to tell you so, and our absence will take none of that from you.

But we want you to know, although you will keep on in your majesty and delicacy, your buttery golden greens and your dark, secretive greens, your perfect, brilliant greens and every other green under the sun, and you will fade in the winter and spill in May into ever-brighter technicolor - except an oddly specifically green sort of technicolor, which forgot about the rest of the spectrum - and we are no more to you than one kiss among thousands, every second, on your skin -

we love you.

We won't forget you.

And we promise we'll come back.

***

Bunduff Lough, Sligo

We're choosing the very worst moment to cut short our time here. We arrived at the very worst moment, too, when the days were at their gloomiest and the weather at its most uninspiring. And now, when the sun is (miraculously) shining and the countryside has transformed itself into a very heaven, we're off again.

A tiny, idyllic river, found during one of these wanders

Excited as we are for a return to adventure on the high seas (more on that to come on Cruising With the Kitties), our feelings are decidedly mixed. I can't even bring myself to pun (and how perfect would this title have been? 'Farewell' is  just begging for an Eire in it). There isn't, arguably, anything so very new or different or special about Ireland's beauty. Everywhere we've been and found ourselves stunned into cliché by the extravagantly gorgeous scenery, you could find an equivalent sort of extravagantly gorgeous scene in, say, the UK, if you knew where to look.

It's just that here, it's fucking everywhere.

And there's no one else around to spoil the view.

We've developed a habit of picking a nearby road, mostly at random, or on the basis of what's closest to drive to, and wandering along it to see where it goes. These aren't official walks, just little local roads with a grassy strip down the middle that see about two cars an hour, but this hobby has yet to fail to offer us something to stare at and marvel.

Me, ridiculously pleased about paddling in the sea

Or take today when, in more organised fashion, we headed off to Bunduff Lough, a lough so small it barely merits the name, which sits right by the sea. We followed another teeny-tiny rural road around its perimeter, fantasising about purchasing every single house we passed, including one so tumble-down you couldn't see the floor for vegetation and which had grown its very own turf roof, and observed repeatedly, with no diminishing of enthusiasm, that, on a day like today, there was nowhere in the world we'd rather be. 

Which is really saying something! The world has no shortage of pleasures on offer. And this was before we found a little grassy path by the river, covered in daisies, that led to the beach, where we ran, barefoot, into the (shockingly cold) sea.

The way down to the sea; the white on the right hand side is all daisies. You can also just make out a castle in the distance.

And that's how we came to the decision to come back and honeymoon in our own house in a few months' time. It's an unorthodox choice, perhaps, but the only rational one when there's nowhere else you'd rather be.

It's about the only way we could bear to leave.