A Little Catch up

Again I fell into the rut of saying "I will blog this later", later turned out to be three months later.. my bad. But behold I have set out the perfect Instagram worthy blogger set up including meditation incense and glass bottled water.

There hasn't been a whole lot of exciting happening around here, the main thing is I passed my driving test and think I have racked up over 2 zillion miles since, going around most of the country. The majority of places I've been over the past few months have been forests and mountains as we found a few local ones and couldn't wait to explore them ( correction:  I could wait, when Rich goes exploring it lasts 3 hours and includes a lot of walking, not a fan, just in it for the scenic photos). I wanted to do many posts on each adventure but was too wrecked after to even make it up the stairs, so now all go into one, I mean you're welcome.

First up, O'Rourkes Table in Sligo, after discovering this beauty while in college, we wanted to climb it again, this time with Bobby in tow to try and tire him out. Now I'd say we drove around for at least an hour trying to remember where it was before I decided to go into a castle and ask at the reception. Along with a map, and tiny little back roads, we found it and took the 370 odd steps up to the top.

Next was an adventure and a half, The Cavan Burren Park. Another thing that took us hours to find and on a rare scorching hot day, but it was a fun road trip, the sun really does make everyone crazier.
There are beautiful walkways around the park and make amazing shots with the wooden paths and views in the background. We finished off the day with ice cream and even a campfire in the garden, being all Summery while we can.

Lastly, one that I don't think I ever will forget is Carrowkeel in Sligo. I had been up here before and wanted to show Rich the interesting megalithic tombs I knew he would enjoy. The path is straight forward up to the tombs and should take less than an hour... but of course Rich didn't take that path. THREE HOURS we took going completely off track, bare in mind we were not prepared for this walk at all and I was in shorts going through shrubs and nettles up to my elbows (not a problem for him being over 6ft tall). We went the completely wrong direction that the main path went and we took a smaller path that brought us across a dead goat, private trespassers not welcome area and the path just ending in the middle of nowhere, brilliant. Mr. Navigator decided we would keep on going through the bush and rocks along the mountain till we got to the tombs. One after another we got to each tomb thinking we finally made it, to discover it still wasn't the right tomb with the main path back to the carpark. We saw plenty of tourists way down below us watching this pair of daft ones climbing through all the bush until finally, we got to the path but of course himself had to go this path too to see what the main tombs were like another hour walk. One thing I did get out of this was meeting the friendliest wild baby goat who came running, I kid you not, running the whole way down bahhing, ( goats bah?) at us until he came within a few feet and then his mum came out of nowhere and basically roared at him to get the F back here. It was an adventure that called for a Chinese

at the end of it.

 A view of the path.. we should have taken.

Vs what we actually took... 

Note to self, be prepared when ever going for 'a quick drive'. 

Picnic Date

We're old school romantics at heart and since I got my license we want to get out and explore more. So to do that obviously you need food.  We decided the other day to take off for the day to the Bluebell Wood, seen in my previous post, another adventure Forest Park and then for a scenic drive home. I wanted to make our picnic we brought with us a bit more special than just your typical sandwiches and fruit so I did some research and found these brilliant ideas. 

 As I said, I wanted to make this picnic different and what could be more different than sandwiches on sticks.
Is it weird that is was satisfying to make these? there was just something about being creative and getting hands in with making these that was just really fun. They also tasted AMAZING because we made them fresh.












Because we were going for the whole day I wanted to make something that would fill us up and thought of a yummy, simple pasta salad with sweetcorn and tuna for healthiness.

When you think of a picnic, along with sandwiches you have fruit but instead of bringing loads of separate pieces of fruit I want to make a fruit salad with a difference. I came across this brilliant idea to serve fruit in a watermelon and thought it would look so cool on the picnic mat. Rich took charge of this one and kinda went his own way with how it looked but hey it worked.






Lastly I wanted to have a healthy snack that we could bring along and thought of popcorn but to make it a bit different I research some crazy flavours you can use and I settled for peanut butter flavour. Now  I'll admit it doesn't look great and I was the only one to dare eating but trust me it was soooo good and I really recommend trying out some different flavours to change it up a bit.





We really had a great day together feeling really loved up in the outdoors exploring the woods. We even seen four deer's run by us in the middle of the forest. Okay we picked the worst day to go as the weather wasn't as good as it was the day before or the next day after but we had fun eating in the car. On our way home after all that walking we stopped for a hot chocolate and some apple pie in a local cafe I used to go alot to as a kid.

Bluebell Wood

Totes excite :D okay I am a grown adult let me rephrase that, 'Much delight'. Today I took my first trip in the car by myself as a fully qualified driver. Okay I brought Bobby for moral support so I was the only human in the car.Yes it didn't start perfect as I forgot Bobby's lead so made the grown up decision to stop at the pound shop and pick up one quick then I decided to take off to a local wood that I heard about but never been to and am so glad I did because it was simply beautiful, yet slightly scary, another of my wise ideas, I decided it would be a good idea for me to go alone into a wood in the late evening with a non-aggressive, quite chubby dog who will be no help in defending me from the clowns that live in woods. But behold no clowns but an array (get me being all poetic) of beautiful, yet slightly withered Bluebells. I genuinely thought there was mist on the ground as I came around the corner into the wood until up close I could see it was just thousands and thousands of Bluebells all over the wood ground. I am so gutted I didn't have my camera because it would have been some beautiful sights but I managed to get a few with okayish quality on my phone.