Peelies travels

On Sunday afternoon there was a knock at the door and the owner of the house presented us with three live lobsters. "You'll know what to do with these, don't ya"? Well luckily we did and we took then gratefully, first using them to amuse the grandchildren and then we prepared the boiling pot. To boil lobster you take the same approach as with crab and put them in the freezer first for a few minutes to slow their senses, before plunging them into salted water that's at the boil. The big boiling pot was again perfect for this. After about ten or so minutes they were pink all over and ready for a cool off in the washing up bowl before we set about opening them up and extracting the flesh. On Monday the tide was just right to allow us to drive across the strand to Omey Island. This is a mile or two from where we are staying and we were able to drive to the car park and watch the waters retreat until it was clear to drive over. The channel between th...

We are here in the west of Connemara, just less than two hours from Galway. The house is on the Aughrus peninsula, not far from Cleggan. The views all around are stupendous and the beach is a three minute walk. There's no-one here other than the local residents. There's plenty of small scale farming, with just a few cows seen locally. A lot of ground is boggy but plenty has been reclaimed and forms small fenced pastures. The headland above Dawn's head in the photograph above is covered in flowers, including purple orchids so there's not a lot of grass being eaten at present. Robin is enjoying the tiled floor throughout most of the ground floor... Bruce is at home on the beach... Rock pooling has started in earnest... ...but catch of the day came from very generous guys in Cleggan, who donated two crabs when Tristan started to enquire about buying fish. So we cooked and prepared them for tea on Saturday. ...

It's back to Europe this early summer but we are heading west to Ireland. So there are worries about the weather, especially as we have been used to hot, dry days and warm nights during our last trips to Iberia and the Balkans. We are initially going to Connemara for a week with all the family and will be based near Clifden. We are hoping for great scenery and views like this. Then it's north to a family wedding in Sligo before we crack open the camping gear and begin to wander south along the coast to wherever our fancy takes us. This year we have upgraded the Landy to provide more battery charging capacity and reduce the reliance on mains hookup at campsites. This is through the addition of a 100W solar panel on the roof which feeds our existing service battery through a new bit of electronics. The solar panel came from  Photonic Universe  and the box of electronics is an MPPT controller for the panel and a dual battery charger that handles the vehic...