Lovely!
It was a very pleasant drive to Boyle, but even after parking we couldn't find the restaurant so Mom went into a shop to ask and Dad and I had a look around. Boyle is a lovely country town:
...with a nice Clock Tower. I love clocks, clock towers, and anything that ticks (though not if it's attached to explosives, naturally...)
A few minutes later Mum returned, laughing to herself and got back into the car. Puzzled, Dad and I went to see what was happening.Apparently 'The Ferryman' restaurant is actually 'The Oarsman' and its not in Boyle, its in Carrick!! I think we laughed all the way to Carrick!
But it was worth finding because the food was lovely, the building was lovely and believe it or not, the place was packed and humming. This is the wall behind the downstairs bar, not a good photo but gives you and idea:
Then we ambled around for a bit, watched some men painting lines on the road, you can laugh but did you know they pour the paint into a little box and drag it along to make the line? and found the Design Center.Its in the old Courthouse, a fine old building huh?
Inside we prowled the galleries (weird stuff, except for a couple of small oil paintings which I though were beautiful) and the shop which sells the design items, some of which were beautiful, some unusual, and some you wouldn't want to see on a dark night by yourself...and ALL of which were shockingly dear. Mum took a shine to a beautiful flowery painting which was reduced and asked the price: €700 and something! Yikes! A mere bagatelle, I'll have four! I think the shop lady was a bit taken aback at Mum's gargling noise but she recovered very quickly...Then we wandered a bit more with Dad pointing out signs which caught his fancy:
'The Magnet' clothes boutique... for clothes which stick to you?
And 'Wispy Discount Store'... for fragile stuff?
And 'Massive Shoe Sale'...for people with big feet?
Yup, that's my Dad's humour, and the thing which really gets Mum is how often Dad and I point out the same thing to each other with the same funny quip...well, we think we're funny...
I saw this sculpture in the courtyard of what looked like an old restored Coaching Inn: it of three Currachs, and I just liked the lines.
It rained as we returned across the Curlew Mountains, and hailed like billy-oh once back at the folks, so we really had the best of the day in Carrick. It makes such a difference to get away from oneself for a while, doesn't it?
