North Country Girl

Life moves at pace...but not in Ireland.  After a lengthy hiatus, I'm very relieved to report that the Emerald Isle hasn't changed that much.  I should point out that this was our first ever visit north of the border and I did wonder whether our memories of the Republic would be matched by our experiences in Northern Ireland.  Ultimately, the divisions highlighted by "The Troubles" on the surface at least, appear to have dissipated and we took comfort in the fact that no borders - physical or otherwise - can contain the beauty of Ireland and the warmth of its people.  In magic, charm, hospitality and pursuit of "the craic" Ireland will always be united.  

To avoid tarnishing these still fresh memories, I'm going to gloss over the stresses of our journey there, other than to say we will never again fly with easyJet or hire a car through Avis, a subsidiary of Budget Car Rental.

Instead, I'm going to largely let the photos do the talking...adding a little textual colour here and there.  In this post, we'll explore our immediate surroundings, Tollymore Forest and the closest town, Newcastle, situated on a stunning stretch of coastline.

Approach to Cottage Farm

Cottage Farm - Mourne Mountains - Cottages for Rent in Newry, Mourne and Down, Northern Ireland, United Kingdom - Airbnb

The link above will take you to our home for the week.  I can't recommend this place enough.  Sean, the owner, turned up one evening  for a pre-arranged visit and took us for a walk up the hill behind the cottage on his private farmland, giving us numerous tips on the places to visit.  I therefore have Sean to thank for my subsequent dusk encounter with a Pine Marten.  For once, I decided not to jeopardise the encounter by pulling out my camera and instead, allowed myself to be fully present in the moment.  We eyed each other for a couple of magical minutes, before he disappeared behind a stone wall.

Lowing cattle, sheep, swooping swallows, bats and a shy, solitary black cat were our only companions here, in the shade of the Mourne mountains in County Down.

It's impossible to avoid the black stuff over here.  (It really does taste better in Ireland).  This property had its very own Guinness post box.

Tollymore Forest, covering an area of 630 hectares, was just down the road.  This place is ethereal and littered with garden follies, including the gothic style gate arches, all showcasing the influence of designer Thomas Wright of Durham (1711-1786), who was a friend of Lord Clanbrassil, owner of Tollymore at that time.

A walk along the Shimna river is marked by many curiosities, natural and artificial - rocky outcrops, bridges, grottos (including "The Hermitage" below) and caves.

God's influence is never a million miles away in Ireland, as evidenced by this chalk scrawled message inside a tiny woodland shelter.

The obligatory cabin the woods.  Spooky when the light is fading fast and you haven't a clue where you are!

I picked up this heavy woollen jumper by Barbour in a charity shop in Chester last year.  As warm as it was on the first couple of days of our trip, the temperature soon plummeted and it served me well on our evening walks in the forest.

Newcastle was full of old school charm, with its big wheel, fairground, caravan park and numerous ice cream parlours.  But with those mountains dominating the skyline and a population of around 8,000, there was a real community spirit.  People took the time to chat, the town looked well cared for and the two bars we frequented during our stay really delivered on warm Irish hospitality.

A wander through the grave yard.

Architectural periods and details rubbing along together...

...and just a hint of Wes Anderson courtesy of this outdoor leisure pool complex.

The entire wall of this sweet shop was adorned with Love Heart sweets featuring common Irish phrases.

Oh and how often do we see shop signage like this today in the UK - without it being a ghost sign or no longer relevant; a relic above a boarded up shop front?  Locally, Beatties, the much loved Wolverhampton Department store, closed for good in 2018 after 146 years of trading.  Even Jenners, the swish Princes Street, Edinburgh department store we used to visit on our annual trips to the Fringe Festival, closed its doors in 2020.

Well Wadsworth of Newcastle is still going strong!

Another day, another forest park.  This time, Castlewellan Forest Park, the entrance dominated by this rather splendid Victorian castle.  The castle itself is not generally open to the plebs/public, but we were keen to explore in the sunshine.

Still, it warrants a potted history.  The original estate, which is situated north of the foothills of the Mourne Mountains, dates back to medieval times.  The Annesleys, who bought the Manor of Castlewllan in 1741, can apparently date their line back to a nobleman who came to England at the time of the Norman Conquest.  However, the Irish branch of the family seems to have begun with Sir Francis Annesley, employed in Ireland by James I, who acquired land there in various counties by both Royal Grant and purchase.  Over the generations, the Annesleys improved the estate and, in 1750, laid out the nearby town of Castlewellan, as well as the formal park.

In the early 1800s, the second Earl built himself a summer villa known as The Cottage on the north shore of the Castlewellan lake (demolished in 1861) and around this time the surrounding parkland was transformed into the more naturalistic landscape we see today.  It's thought that this was undertaken by John Sutherland (c. 1745-1826), the most celebrated Irish landscape architect of the time.  However, the Annesley family lived elsewhere rather than at Castlewellan and it wasn't until a generation later when the 4th Earl, Hugh's elder brother William (1838-1874), built the Scottish baronial style castle on the shores of the lake (between 1856-1858), that the family moved there.

Itching to explore, we completed a circuit of the lake...

...before entering the Peace Maze, planted in 2000 and representing the path to a peaceful future in Northern Ireland.  The maze is one of the largest permanent hedge mazes in the world, comprising 6000 Yew trees and forming around 2 miles of winding pathways.

We immediately went our separate ways in a race to the centre.  Gareth, who in real life, has no sense of direction, was first.  Obviously his whole counter intuitive way of thinking works wonders in a fantasy maze setting.  I'm not bitter!

On the way home, we passed one of many derelict buildings from yesteryear.  Many are in a much worse state than this, but are rarely touched, partly due to the costs of renovation, but also as the Irish value them as important examples of the island's social history.  

Just look at that patina!  

I'll sign off now, but I'll return very soon with scenic roads, St Patrick's trail, and Titanic tales!

Tunnel Vision

Hello!  I'm checking in after another self imposed period of absence from the screen.  Eyes and screens are not great bedfellows and eye strain is a recurring problem for me, my phone being the biggest culprit.  Talk about 21st century problems!

We are living in dark times and there are times when I'm finding it hard to find the light.  Photography continues to push me to do so.  Here's the moon glimpsed through our roof window, criss crossed by thorns and slightly soft focus rosehips.  I'm slightly irritated by that, but quite like the overall magic of the scene.

I appreciate the escape that Blogland offers, but there are some things that just shouldn't be left unsaid.  All life is precious and every single one that is cut short by war or malevolence is a tragedy.  The world's problems are numerous, widespread and currently feel insurmountable.  Yet in this turbulent world plagued by violence, intolerance and corruption, Alexei Navalny was one soul who offered a glimmer of hope, albeit in the dim and distant future. 

Incomprehensibly, he's no longer with us....yet another light that has gone out.  If you've never seen the Oscar winning documentary "Navalny" you really should.  It's inspiring stuff and his bravery clearly knew no bounds.  After viewing what I could of his funeral yesterday on YouTube, I felt moved enough to immortalise him in this revolutionary-style poster, alongside his chosen final message.

February has been one of the wettest on record, so our walks have been few and far between.  I've realised that dampness has a huge impact on how cold I feel.  Crisp, dry air, even when the thermometer is hovering around zero, is much more comfortable than 7 or 8 degrees in damp conditions.  

That said, we continue to discover new places on our doorstep.  Regular readers will know that Kinver Edge, the National Trust managed area, is a beloved local beauty spot of ours.  In amongst the 600 acres of land, are hidden places of intrigue and last weekend, we ventured to the perimeter and beyond and stumbled across another one - a Grade II listed monument - hidden deep in dense woodland. 

It bears the following inscription: 

"This pillar commemorates 

That devoted man Richard Baxter

Minister of the Old Church.

Kidderminster about the year 1650

And whose unwearied labours

Were so greatly blessed to that

Town and neighbourhood.

Read his Saints everlasting rest

And call to the converted."

The pillar monument, erected circa 1850, stands tall, but nonetheless is somewhat dwarfed by the surrounding trees.

Now, I'd never heard of this Richard Baxter, so after a little research, I discovered that Baxter was a Nonconformist Puritan minister, theologian, poet and hymn writer (he had a lot going on!) 

His ministry in nearby Kidderminster was controversial because Baxter's strong views on justification and sanctification, with their emphasis on faithfulness and repentance, were unusual.

Baxter was elected as minster by the people of Kidderminster after being invited to deliver a sermon.  He was twenty six.  He had a long and eventful career, dogged by persecution in one form or another. 

He was ejected from the Church of England after the 1662 Act of Uniformity.  However, he became one of the most influential leaders of the Nonconformists in the 1600s, partly because of his prolific theological writings, partly because of his prosecutions and his time in prison for various faith related offences.  

You can read about his turbulent life and divisive theological views here:-

Richard Baxter - Wikipedia

Just a stone's throw away from the monument, is the Drakelow Tunnel complex, a former underground military complex covering 26,500 square metres with a total length of 5.6 km.  They were originally built as a Second World War Shadow Factory and were developed during the Cold War to be a fall back government centre.

British shadow factories were the result of the Shadow Scheme, a plan devised in 1935 and developed by the British Government in the build up to World War II to try to meet the urgent need for more aircraft using technology transfer from the motor industry to implement additional manufacturing capacity.  The term "shadow" might suggest secrecy, but in reality it was a reference to a protected environment staffed by motor industry employees of all skill levels working alongside (in the shadow of) their own similar motor industry operations.

The Drakelow Tunnels Museum is now open after spending a number of years in private ownership.  Inexplicably, we never got around to visiting before the complex (the largest underground tunnel complex in the UK) closed in the 1990s and I was unaware until recently that it had in fact reopened after a painstaking transformation into a family friendly Cold War Museum.  I've dropped them an email to plan our very first visit!

Given that the echoes of this dark chapter of our history are reverberating loudly now in 2024, I'll leave you with some positivity.

First up...a beautiful sunrise captured last week.  Our house sits on the fringes of the West Midlands conurbation.  In one direction, we have a fairly urban skyline as evidenced by this photo.  In the opposite direction, we have woodland and countryside stretching all the way to Wales.

The low lying mist and pale pink sunrise makes everything look beautiful!

In the garden, Squirrel Nutkins is up to his usual antics, robbing great chunks of fat balls from the disgruntled robins and blackbirds.

As much as I can't stand the rain, we witnessed some beautiful cloud formations over Walton Hill (another local beauty spot with incredible panoramic views over town and country).

Today, I scored these apparently unused M&S hiking boots from a charity shop for £7.00 and am choosing to ignore the teen's cruel "Ronald MacDonald shoes" comparison.  

Whilst it might not feel like Spring right now (snow fell on high ground last night), nature definitely received the memo.

But the big news in these parts, is that last week, Staffordshire County Council served a notice on the owners of The Crooked House (Britain's Wonkiest Pub), to rebuild it within 3 years, exactly as it was before the arson attack and unlawful destruction.  Regular readers will recall that we were outraged last August when yet another piece of local heritage was laid to waste, allegedly by individuals motivated by financial gain.

You can read my post written in the aftermath here:- Winter Peach Photography: A Very Crooked Tale

The campaign group have plans for an event on the anniversary of its demolition, which include inviting along the band originally booked to play on the eve of its destruction - Gasoline and Matches.  Yes, really!

There's a way to go yet, but it's definitely seen as a little victory and a big step towards the pub making a return!

See you soon!

Spring Blues

As you will all have heard, singer Tina Turner died yesterday after a long illness.  Mark Knopfler of Dire Straits wrote her hit "Private Dancer" and paid this tribute to her:  

"She was a human dynamo.  I've never met anyone like Tina."

Death is a constant and always around us (more so than ever these days) and so it fills me with a bone aching sadness to report that we lost our own feline dynamo, Lotte, on Saturday evening; a sudden and traumatic loss that unfolded like a bad dream.  As fellow cat subjects will know, they are magical and mesmerising and really get under your skin.  Lotte was no different, but she also had an enormous personality and without our constant chats and her head bumps, I feel adrift.  

I try to remind myself that Lotte chose us as her companions in this life and for that I'm forever grateful and if, as the ancient Egyptians believed, by some chance there is an afterlife, then I can't think of a better companion.

After notifying the vets, we received this beautiful card containing a heart wrenching poem and a packet of forget-me-not seeds.

In the immediate aftermath of losing Lotte, we all tested positive for Covid and Gareth and I have been feeling pretty rough.  I don't say this for sympathy; but rather, by way of explanation for the short post.

I am slowly catching up on Blogland, so bear with me.  In the meantime, life goes on and spring is the month for showcasing new life.  I'll leave you with a dose of Vitamin N and end on a positive note, with some uplifting photos from recent walks... 

Canalside

Barley and Vetch

Hawthorn

Roadside Flowers

Buttercups - a tortoise's dream

Dragonfly

Common Vetch

Lacy phacelia (Borage family member)

Crimson Clover

...and a glimpse of what's growing and thriving in the garden.

Roscastle Black Viola

Fuchsia

Gunnera Manicata

Irish Molly Viola

                                                                                                Bye for now!