We Have Water! 15th January 2009

A rather splendid moss covered fence post. I passed this when I went for an adventurous walk on Thursday. Look, it's green, not white!

Well, hoorah for the mild weather. Precisely one week after our water froze, it came on again. I can't tell you the relief we felt. I was up early and saw that the tap was dripping. Jim was up soon afterwards and managed, with the help of plumber Seamus on the phone, to sort out Billy Boiler and soon he was blasting out heat to his heart's content. We had also had a delivery of wood pellets the day before, so all is once more well in our little world. Jim also went shopping and stocked up with supplies and posted some letters.

The first thing I did was to give the kitchen surfaces a good clean, wash up and put the full dish washer on too. Then I had a lovely, long shower. I have had the washing machine on almost constantly too, as we were running out of clothes. We really weren't very nice to know at all!

Thursday was the day that Jim went shopping and I decided to take Buster for a walk. I walked down to Kevin's farmhouse, but instead of going round the back of his house to the lake, I turned right along the old East Clare Way. It was still pretty icy in places, but that's better than its usual state, when it is churned up by cows and very muddy.

Melting ice on the lane down to Kevin's. It looks like a face.

As we passed Lough Graney on our left, I took this photo. The dark stripes are where the ice has melted.


There were drips everywhere, as the snow and ice melted. They decorated the grasses like jewels.


It's so good to see green again (and a little red crept in).


This is the ground just after I passed through the very awkward gate. It doesn't get much sun here at all. Can you spot Buster up ahead? This is the path that the couple I photographed, Claire and Terry, had walked along from their home, the other side of the bog.

Some of the ice seemed to have bubbles in it. If you click on any of the photos, you can enlarge them and see them in much more detail.

The path goes right through the Doorus Peat Bog. It is criss crossed with deep fissures where the peat has been dug to burn as fuel. We actually have rights to dig in this bog - but have never done so. It's jolly hard work and all the crevices are full of water. It's a strange place, almost other worldly with many dead trees and swamps. Lichen and moss clings to the branches and old stumps stick up out of the brown, peat coloured water. I tried to capture this feeling in the following photographs:



The above photo is a joiner of 3 photos and I think it shows the swampy nature of the bog pretty well.


Here, you can see where the peat has been dug out and left steep walls and water filled crevices.

I think I'll stop here tonight as it's late and that's probably enough for one post.

I'll continue with my adventurous walk tomorrow. I hope everyone has a good weekend. We will!