Carrowholly

There's a Guinness Beef Stew simmering on the stove, some trad. music playing, the tide is in and Croagh Patrick recedes into the Irish night. I fell asleep this afternoon laying on a blanket in the yard, in the SUN. Ireland is teasing me....last summer, in a seven-week period, we had perhaps four days of all-day-sun. I had to come inside: it was too hot. Go figure.

We discovered while claiming our baggage this morning in Shannon that one of our neighbors from our little cove here in Ireland was on the same plane from Newark. Amy -- returning from a 3-month jaunt which included Orlando, Vegas and NYC. We offered a ride (2 1/2 hours to Westport) to Amy and her friend Maeve but would've needed a moving van to accommodate all their luggage, alas. Bus it was then, for them.

I staggered bleary-eyed through the Super-Valu, shopping list in hand, jet-lag like a hundred-pound weight strapped to my back, encouraging complete collapse. Having to get stew meat from the butcher really flummoxed me -- kilograms? I couldn't fathom kilograms in my brain/sleep-depleted state. The butcher, though, was kind, and did the conversion for me.

Paul, on the other hand, was enjoying a thirty-minute burst of energy, and not only went to the local techie store for an internet device, he also found some flip-up sunglasses (left his groovy glasses in Redmond), picked up a dozen eggs from Christie's Harvest, checked the upcoming shows at Matt Molloys pub, and got the newest Joseph O'Connor book at Seamus Duffy's Books. Good god!

All the horses were out coming down the road to the house, including this lovely beast: