Self-Winding · A Sort of Progression

This is the view from our cottage in Terryglass. We had a great week driving through Tipperary, Clare, Galway and stunningly scenic Connemara. We stood above the soaring Cliffs of Moher, gazed out at Galway Bay and found The Burren in flower. It rained, but whenever we arrived somewhere important the sun came out as if some god of Irish tourism was on our side & parted the clouds.

We checked out the Guinness, rationed the gin (at £23 a bottle) and did well by the tender Irish steaks in Paddy's Bar. We wearied of the ubiquitous faces of politicians on election posters plastered everywhere;even deep among the hills, Bertie Ahern would grin out from a tiny croft. We braved a horrifying rush hour in Galway town and got lost regularly among green and wandering lanes where sheep dictated the pace. We danced at a village hall céilidh and I went to Mass for the first time in years, in honour of my ancestors.

And that, certainly, is the best part of my Irish story - for I did find my father's family. I will write it up next week and post some of the photographs. I have American visitors arriving tomorrow for the week-end and I don't have time to do literary justice to what has been a wonderful event in my life. I had the most amazing luck....

Have been reet poorly. On top of a bad virus, for the first time in my life I have had a pollen allergy. Most of Norfolk at the moment is covered in vast acreages of oilseed rape; it used to make me sneeze, but now the huge volume of wind-blown pollen reduces me to a heap of coughing, snivelling mucus. I am not alone, local doctors and pharmacies are under siege for anti-histamine. As this bio-fuel destined crop is likely to expand in the future I dread to think what is going to happen to the newly allergic souls who must live in this Van Gogh landscape. I have it under control now, but I don't like the prospect.

I am going to Ireland on Saturday - Tipperary, the birthplace of my father who died, at 32, when I was a child. The plan is to look at places where I know he was - Roscrea, Nenagh, a school, a monastery; and to talk to two local families who may, or may not turn out to be be my kin. It won't matter, just to be there will make a connection at last. I don't know why I have allowed myself to go so long before making the pilgrimage. Something subliminal.

We are going with two friends and staying, not far away, in one of these cottages in a village called Terryglass which lies on the shore of Lough Derg, largest of the lakes on the Shannon River system. I have a feeling that I'm about to fall, topographically, in love.

I will take a lot of photos and get down to a proper bit of writing when I come back home. Till then, my bloggie friends, Slán go fóill.