Friday Morning in Adare

Woke up at 510 am two sparrows were quarreling,

Bad birds, bad birds. I had slept really well on my little cot until then. Went down to the parlour of the 1850's Georgian manor house and made myself a cup of tea. Ahhh. I explored the house, as I was the only one awake. I checked on my clothes in the drying closet. I had hung them up last night as they were soaking from the boat ride. They were almost dry but not my runners. They were still quite damp.

I went up stairs and down stairs and found hallways in the oddest paces. before staying there, I had no idea how many rooms these old houses had, and staircases too.

The outside walls are quite thick but I can still hear the N21. We are even back from the highway quite a ways.

Then I explored the outside. This is a working farm bed and breakfast.

It is the neatest farm I have ever seen. The yard in back is all paved and clean. They have cattle, a horse and last night I heard chickens and a dog. There were lots of crows in the trees around the old walled kitchen garden. Went back inside for another cup of tea.

The parlor was an interesting room it had high ceilings with a picture rail and pale yellow walls the fireplace had a dark wood mantle with flower tile accents on the side of an old electric fireplace.. There was a piano in the corner. The parlour was quite large and could easily seat 16 comfortably. I sketched the cows in the front pasture and that kept me busy for a while.

Most of the places we have stayed at do not have clocks but in that room there were two. One across from each other in the room. They ticked in an offset manner from each other with one having a lower tone. It was an interesting exercise in mindfulness.

Went up to the room and had a shower, my face is still red but not as bad as last night.

Kathleen made our breakfasts and we chatted with the other quests. There was a young girl who wanted to use the phone and when she was done we went and tried Maureen’s phone card. Again, no luck. We checked out the village walks card #22 for Adare and made our plans for the morning.

After saying goodbye to Kathleen we headed off and drove through Adare. the weather had turned grey and cloudy and the warm summer air of last night was only a memory.

We went to the 13 th century priory which is part of Holy Trinity Church .

It was gorgeous. Carved stone and walkways in the cloister with climbing roses that were in bloom in the courtyard. It was really a magical place. Connected to this was the curch that was built in the 1700's. It was really a lovely church.

After the church we headed back to dublin as we had to get the car back to the rental agency by noon and it was 930 already.