The Last Round Trip

We got back today from the last round trip between Ballinrobe and Killybegs--next week we will head north on a one-way journey.

This was our 4th week in a row of going back and forth and every time we've been up there the sun has been shining brightly and it has been quite summerlike and warm--until this week! It rained a lot of the time--mist, drizzle, lashing down--lots of different types of rain. The wind blew. I was watching the wind blow the rain across the harbour in billowing ribbons. Yesterday morning the sun came out for a while and I watched the birds flying around in the front garden while the raindrops sparkled like multi-coloured fairy lights. I seem to spend some time at the window every morning when we are there looking at the water and the birds (they love that front garden) and the plants, and the hills. I suppose the novelty will eventually wear off, but I must remind myself to try and keep my conscious appreciation alive.

We did venture out a couple of times--one stop was the charity shop where I snagged the last wool blanket. I hoped it would still be there. It was only 3 euro (the ones I bought last week were 4), but it's a little smaller. That's OK. I can still use it and who knows what I might do with it! They do seem to cry out for embellishment! We also bought some books--knowing I did not have to pack them into a suitcase and drag them around this island allowed us to browse with abandon :-)

Needless to say it was not gardening weather so the intrepid landscape artists did not do much during this time. I am sure the stuff they have already planted enjoyed the soaking they got. Pots and baskets are in place ready to bloom.
This is the view from our door when we step out back and want to head left toward the driveway:

The stone shed with the grey door is ours--we have yet to go check that out and see what is in there, if anything besides our oil (kerosene) tank.

This is the view to the right:

 There are a couple of tulips just behind the stone wall across from our door--such vivid colours!

Inside we have started to put up some of our own stuff. We can't put any new holes in the walls, but we can remove things that are already hanging and use those nails. This place has a lot of stuff already hanging and some of it we both like a lot and will leave where it is. A few things we don't care for and have taken them down. We have a bunch of little stuff that does not require nails, but we don't want to use tacks on the walls, either, so I decided to utilize some space that would otherwise have remained blank to display some stuff with no holes required!

That's the view from "my" chair in the sitting room.

We are both looking forward to getting up there and knowing that we do not have to turn around and come back in a couple of days and we will be spending the next few days tidying up odds and ends. It's a bank holiday weekend here so we will do some errands tomorrow and save the stuff we need to do at home for the weekend. For tonight though, we are just going to hang around, relax, and be happy that we do not have to get up early in the morning to catch a bus!!

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A Week and a Half (But Who's Counting?)

In a week and a half we will haul our suitcases down the stairs and walk to the square one more time to catch the bus to Galway. From there we will catch a bus to Donegal Town where we will get a bus to Killybegs. Then we will roll our suitcases one more time down the sidewalks before dragging them up the hill and into our cottage.

Before we get to that point, we need to do the whole thing this week and do it again in reverse as we return for that last load. There may be a bus strike Friday and next weekend is a bank holiday weekend, so we plan to be in Ballinrobe on those days. Including today we have 7 days left to spend here. I have already done a bunch of cleaning and we are getting some stuff taken care of now, so I am not sure there will be that much to do, but I will have my afghan in progress here to work on, my mp3 player full of music and podcasts to listen to, and my old nook is filled with plenty of reading material.

I finished the last paper book I had with me and put it in the box with the others that will be passed along to our neighbor, who will keep what she wants and pass on the rest. It will be all e-books for me for the next couple of weeks!

The load for this week is packed.

My slow cooker is in the red suitcase. When I bought it I saved the box and the styrofoam that was in it, so I put everything back the way it was and filled in empty spaces around the outside and inside the crock with thread, kitchen towels and other cushy things. Don't want to waste any space!

I will also have a tote bag that will come with me inside the bus. That will have my lunch, my nook, and some other stuff, including one of my ongoing projects, which I will be able to work on during the trip if I feel like it.

The way back will be much easier! I will leave my purple backpack up there and we will bring the suitcases back with us. We discovered last week that we can put the green one inside the red one--it just fits--and only have one to drag around.

I had been planning to buy an iron when we moved. I don't need it for clothes--I do not buy (or keep, in the case of hand-me-downs) clothes that require fussy care like ironing. But sometimes I could use one to iron a piece of fabric or some aida cloth, so I planned to buy a simple cheapo iron for that purpose--hopefully at the charity shop!  I discovered last week that there is no need! Yay!

This was sitting in the back of a cupboard in the kitchen. It must be an older model--the cord is fabric instead of plastic. There are no bells and whistles or even steam! Just a simple dial that allows you to adjust the heat based on the fabric type. I plugged it in and it does get hot, so there's that sorted. I have a cross stitch kit that I want to start soon--after hauling it around for 17 years--and before I get started I will need to iron the cloth.

I am curious to see what the ivy around our windows will look like this week.

 Last week I noticed that the leaves had gotten noticeably bigger since we'd been there the week before. Stuff is growing fast!

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Conversations

When we arrived at the cottage in Killybegs the other day and I was getting the door open, a guy appeared from somewhere and said, "Hi Shari and Bill! I'm Tim. I just wanted to say 'welcome.' I understand you don't have a car, so if you need a ride somewhere or anything else, just come and find me. I am either with Theresa or over there. I'm here until Sunday--I go between here and Belfast. I know you are in transition now and won't keep you, but I wanted to welcome you here." A while later we were going out for groceries and saw Jason, one of the guys who lives there and does a lot of the physical labour involved with the gardening--Theresa says he does the heavy lifting and she does the designing. "Hiya!" he said with a wave. From somewhere out of view we heard Theresa call out her greeting.

We got our groceries and came back. Theresa and Tim were talking to an elder guy and they introduced us to Jackie, the resident historian and philosopher. Jackie lives next door and down the hill a way from the Coast Guard station. He said to us, "I'd like to welcome you to the Coast Guard Station."

Jackie left and we chatted with Theresa and Tim. Tim said that if we have anything heavy and wanted him to, he could come drive down and help us get it up there! We'd been talking to the guy for less than 10 minutes and there he was offering to make an 8 or 9 hour round trip and help us with heavy stuff! What a nice thing to say! It seems as though we are moving into a nice little neighbourhood up there on the hill.

The next afternoon after we'd rearranged the bedroom, unpacked, and put away what we could, we headed out to do our errands. The plan was to go to the charity shop to look for a spatula, a slotted spoon, and a ladle. On the way, I noticed a sign on a store that I'd not paid attention to before. There were shoes and clothes in the window so I took no notice, but this time I looked up and saw a sign that said, "household" with a photo of a bed. "Maybe they sell pillows!" I exclaimed as I crossed the street. We walked in and I asked the woman, "Do you sell bed pillows?" "What kind of pillows?" she asked. "Bed pillows," I repeated.  She laughed and put her hand on my arm. "I thought you said GOOD pillows!" she said as she headed off toward the stairs. The pillows were downstairs and as we started down, I told Bill that it smelled exactly like Nana's house when I would go down into the basement!

She showed us where the pillows were and heard someone come into the store upstairs, so she left us there. She had duvets too and we briefly discussed getting one or two, but decided against it. I like the idea of duvets, but they are too short and I always end up with my feet sticking out!

We took a couple of pillows and went upstairs to pay. She handed Bill the change and suddenly placed her hands on the pillows and had a concerned frown on her face. "Do youse have a car nearby?" she wanted to know. "No," we replied, puzzled. She was concerned about this and Bill explained that we could just carry them home as we were moving into the Coast Guard station and it was not that far. "Are you sure?" she said, uncertainly. We tried to reassure her as we took the pillows and left.

We were almost at the charity shop so on we went, carrying our new pillows. I looked around for yarn, but alas, there was none. Grabbed the kitchen utensils I needed though and then walked over to a different part of the shop. Bill spotted some cream coloured blankets folded on a chair. They looked like they had a decent wool content and we needed blankets. At 4 euro a pop, the price was right too, so I took two of them and went to pay. She threw in the utensils for free and put everything into a bag. The blankets were kind of heavy and the pillows were bulky, so I took the former and Bill took the latter and we headed home. Once there, I put the pillows in cases and examined the blankets. Turns out they are pure Irish wool. Yay! I am a big fan of wool--I think it's magical. One blanket has a small hole and one has a small tear at the end. Both issues are easily fixed and the blankets themselves are sort of a canvas. For now I will leave them as they are, but in the future, I might embellish them or use them as a backing for some stitching. Right now I am just happy that I did not buy a duvet--these are much better and bigger!!

After that was done we headed out to finish our errands. We wanted to stop at Centra (which seems to be known as "Hegarty's" to the locals so I will have to get used to calling it that) to buy something with which to make lunches for Friday's trip back to Ballinrobe. We also wanted to stop at the B&B where we'd stayed a couple of weeks before to pick up the cones of yarn the owner had kindly stored for me.

We went into Hegarty's and picked up some smoked salmon and rolls--we had some cream cheese at home. We were looking at something when this guy came up to Bill and said, "You were taking it easy earlier!" Bill agreed. I saw that it was the butcher from down the street and he was talking about Bill carrying the pillows! I have to chuckle--it did not take long for us to be known as "those people who walk around with backpacks" here in Ballinrobe. In Killybegs we can be known as "those people who walk around carrying pillows!"

We went to pay and the very friendly and helpful guy who checked us out asked if we wanted a small knife. "No thank you," I said. "Are you sure?" he asked. I assured him that we were good and thanked him for the offer. It dawned on me that he thought we were tourists who planned to eat lunch outside somewhere. I thought it was very thoughtful of him to ask.

Last stop, B&B. We rang the bell and Gerry, one of the owners answered. We went in and he apologized, saying Patricia wasn't home but he would see if he could find the wool. There was a guest in the entryway so I explained why we were there. She perked up. "Where is this charity shop? I must stop there. I am a wool person myself!" Gerry came back and said he couldn't find it but if we came back after 6, Patricia would be home.

We went back later and he answered the door again, saying he was just thinking of us and she still wasn't back. I told him I could come back next week and he said he'd call her. I said it was no bother to come back and he shouldn't disturb her, but he said he would and went off to do that. The guest was in the sitting room so we went in and talked to her some more. I'd spotted a skein of sock yarn on the table outside and asked if it was hers and what she was making. We had a lovely conversation, Claudia from Germany and I, about socks, magic loop, wool, knitting, crocheting, and some other stuff. I kept having to switch from "yarn" to "wool." Meanwhile, Gerry came back with the yarn/wool and talked to Bill, saying we will never regret moving to Killybegs.

We bade Claudia farewell and wished her a good trip--she had decided to extend her stay for a day or two--I don't blame her! We walked home and Theresa, Tim, and Jason were out working again--they are working so hard on the gardening. There are pots all over the place and flowers in the flowers beds. It already looks nice and I bet it will be spectacular this summer! We chatted for a while and Theresa reiterated an earlier offer to drive us anywhere we needed to go, even offering to drop us off at the beach in her pjs :-) After a while Tim said, "Remember, if you need me to drive down there and help you with anything, just let me know!"

I patted Fergus, the little white elder dog, who is 12. I think of him as Superman because when I met him last week he had on a T-shirt with the Superman logo on it. We learned he is diabetic, so will not be able to spoil him with treats.

After a while we went inside and shortly after that they stopped working for the evening. Things slowed down at the Coast Guard station. I knitted for a while and then brought a book upstairs to bed. I wished we did not have to catch a bus out of town at 7:55 the next morning. In a week and a half we will get there knowing we will not have to leave again in a couple of days. I am looking forward to that!

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Another Productive Round Trip

We got back a few hours ago from another trip to Killybegs and back. We had a larger load this time--two rolling suitcases and our backpacks. One of the suitcases was a larger one and they were both heavy, containing as they did a bunch of books. As I was dragging the bigger one up the hill that is our driveway I had cause to ponder the fact that gravity and I were working at cross purposes.

We had a really pleasant trip up there--made the early bus from Galway with a couple of minutes to spare. That meant we got into Killybegs at 2:15 instead of 4:45 and that was such a treat. We got to the grocery store and back and could just settle in for the rest of the day and night. We didn't do anything else that night except hang out in our new home and it was really nice to just sit and relax. I took a shower, made some coffee, and sat reading a book I'd started and left up there the week before. It was quite relaxing.

The next morning I couldn't wait any longer to rearrange the bedroom furniture. The place has small bedrooms and comes furnished. Like most other places here, there are no closets, but wardrobes instead. These are large and take up floor space.

The spare room really has to stay as it is. It is a really funky shape with angled walls in a couple of places and hardly any room in the small section without the angles. There is a double bed in there which sits in a corner. There is possibly a foot of space between the edge of the bed on one side and the other wall.

We are using this bed as a dumping spot right now. Once all our stuff is up there we can organize this stuff and put it where it will belong. We're just not sure where it will belong yet!

This is what the rest of the room looks like. I was standing with my back against the window sill when I took the photo:

This room is perhaps 6 feet wide and possibly 10 feet long. Given the angles and the furniture, which we can't put anywhere else even if we wanted to, there isn't anything we can do here, so we will just put sheets on the bed and that will be that!

The other bedroom is a bit larger--possibly 8 by 10--and it also has an angle, a wardrobe, and a dresser. In addition to that there are two single beds and a few other things. At first we briefly thought about switching the double bed into the front bedroom and placing the other beds in the back bedroom, but we quickly realized we would never fit both beds in there. We can't take the beds apart because they are all wood slats and put together with screws and stuff. Even if we could move furniture, given the close quarters that would be tricky.

When we got there the two single beds were lengthwise along two walls with a little space in between. Because of the angle, one was more forward than the other. We turned the beds around and pushed them together.

Originally one bed was in front of that false fireplace front here the chair is and the other was in front of the radiator. Now they both face the window.

This is the view from the bed:

This is the room from the spot where the chair is:

The wardrobe was originally turned sideways, which was kind of silly--you couldn't even open the doors all the way. With everything rearranged like this, it is now a comfortable, pleasant, and functional room.

You can see the improv bed linen--we had sheets but no pillows or blankets. The couch had a couple of small blankets as covers--one on the seat and one on the back--so I put those on one of the beds and just piled shawls onto the other one.

Here is a 270 degree view of what we see from our bedroom doorway. The 4th direction is a wall.

The doorway on the right is the spare room and the middle doorway is the bathroom.

Walk past the sink and stand by the shower and you get to the little alcove with the toilet on your left.

There is a little step and the alcove has its own light switch and light. The shower is an electric shower so it heats the water as needed.

We can also use the water heater on an "as needed" basis. We've been told it can run on oil or we can just flip the electricity on for a few minutes before we will need it and we will have hot water. I wondered how well this would work, but so far so good. I plan to only use it when I need it. It's an immersion hot water heater and the water easily gets extremely and dangerously hot.

It was nice to get the bedroom arranged the way we want it. We unpacked and got some of the stuff put away with the rest out of the way on the extra bed. That left us the rest of Thursday free and it turned out to be equally productive. That's a story for tomorrow. Right now I need some coffee!!

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Creaky

Feeling a little creaky tonight. We had planned to leave today for Killybegs with another load, but the plans changed when Bill spoke to the landlord yesterday. He asked if we could allow someone to come in and look at the place on Friday. This person may be willing to move in as soon as we move out and that would be great for the landlord, so we are doing what we can to facilitate that. I'd planned to leave the major cleaning to the end, but I did it today instead. I washed the windows and was surprised at how well the outside of the bedroom windows came out. I had to channel my inner contortionist while standing on a chair, but I got the crud off. While I was up on the chair with the curtain rod down, we took off the curtains we had bought (at a charity shop) for the room and put back the ones that were there when we arrived. These do not reach across the entire window, which isn't great, but I didn't want the guy to think he was getting the other curtains and then find them gone if/when he moves in! I think I mentioned in a previous post that there are no duvets up there so we will need blankets. I plan to make a blanket out of the curtains, which have an attached lining, too. One seam should do it. I could embellish too. I am also working on an afghan for a bed--just making it up as I go along.

I did a major vacuuming job, which included moving furniture and going along all the baseboards, while bent double. Not a fun position for the back! I will probably have to do another quick vacuum before we go, but hope this is the end of furniture moving!

I did a load of laundry last night and hung it on the rack until this morning when I got it out on the line in the bright sunshine.

We packed Bill's suitcase and rearranged the bags I am taking.

I cooked some stuff this morning that we can eat for supper and I can bring for lunch on the road tomorrow. We ate some more stuff that came out of the freezer today.

We have between 2 and 2 1/2 weeks left until we get up there for good. We will do our trip this week, one next week, and then the last one sometime during the week after the May bank holiday. Thankfully we have arranged it so that we have a day in between arriving and departing. We did a back to back last week and it was too much. For a while we thought we were going to have to do it again next week--there may be a transport worker strike on the Friday, so we need to avoid that day. I was already thinking we shouldn't travel that day because it is the day before the bank holiday weekend. Guess that's why they chose it for their strike! I'd completely forgotten that Bill had a blood test scheduled on Tuesday though! His INR was slightly high last test--probably due to the meds he is taking for the shingles pain--and the doc said to go back in 3 weeks instead of the usual 4. Between the strike and the blood test, we were looking at going on Wednesday, dumping a load, and coming back Thursday, but Bill called and asked the GP if he could go in Monday instead of Tuesday. No problem. Yay! Now we can leave on Tuesday morning and be back before the holiday weekend. I would rather just stay up there, but we will need to come back for another load, I think. With Bill not being up to par, we are having to take smaller loads each trip than we otherwise would. We are taking a couple of rolling suitcases this time. They will slow us down a bit but since we have time between bus connections and do not have to meet anyone when we get there, that's OK. Bill was unsuccessful in his attempts to get a "man with a van" quote and we really don't have time to search for someone and hope they call back. By the time we are done, we will have made 5 round trips and one more trip up there. I wonder what it will be like to have a week without a trip from Ballinrobe to Killybegs and back again! When we get to that point I am going to plan a day where I get up whenever I want, meander through the day with cups of coffee and tea, simple food, books, and yarn. Maybe a nap, too!

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Moving in Stages and Water Tank in the Attic

It is starting to look like we are moving! Reminds me of last year, but thankfully on a much smaller scale!! I sometimes look around and think how much there is to do and then I remind myself that most of the stuff I am looking at is staying right where it is!

We've started to pull stuff from the cabinets so we remember to take what is ours while leaving behind what was here when we arrived. Books are in piles. We are eating stuff from the freezer. I am organizing loads and deciding what to take in which suitcase. Bill went through his books and decided not to take several of them. I'd read a few in the past week and added those to the bunch. I put them all in a box to give to our neighbor. We gave her some several months ago and collected a box plus another decent pile after that, which I gave her a couple of weeks ago. She keeps some and passes others along to people who want them. It's like a little free library up here! She seemed happy to get them and I was happy that people actually want them!

This time we will take two rolling suitcases and our smaller backpacks, though Bill's backpack will have to be light. Mine is has smooshy yarn stuff on the bottom with books on top. I have left room to carry my lunch. I also have a canvas bag that has books, sock yarn, and a skein of yarn to work with on the ride. The suitcases will go into the luggage compartments on the buses.

It will be nice to get there and dump another load! We will bring back one of the suitcases empty, but will leave one up there along with the canvas bag.

This is the Old Coastguard Station.

The part on the left is called "The Tower House" by the locals, I think. To the right of that as you look at the photo are 5 terraced cottages, one of which is ours.

Bill started a photo gallery of Killybegs, which can be found here.

In the meantime, back in Ballinrobe we have had a bit of water drama. Our neighbor had to call our landlord when we were gone a couple of weeks ago because the water dripping from the roof overhang above our door/walkway was constant and getting worse. Someone was supposed to call to set up a time to come and fix the problem on the 11th. They didn't. Bill called the landlord before we left last week and asked if we should leave a key so someone could get in and fix it while we were gone. No. Landlord called while we were in the letting agent's office last week. Bill called back. Landlord said that someone would call the next morning to set up a time. He did, while we were on the bus. He told Bill to call when we got home. Bill did. Left message. No reply. Next morning, Bill called again. This time a call back! Said he'd come Monday (today). He would call first. We waited to see. He called and he came, but forgot his ladder. He went off to get the ladder, came back, went into the attic and fixed the problem.

When I first became aware of this dripping thing, I wondered about why it happened when we were out and/or not using the water. Someone told me there are water storage tanks in the attic. I googled and discovered that this is pretty standard. As I understood it, the water comes from the main line through the kitchen. Then it goes beyond the kitchen to this tank. Water to the bathroom and the immersion water heater is gravity fed from the tank. The tank has a ball cock on it like a toilet tank does. If this malfunctions, water keeps flowing into the tank and it overflows. This is channeled towards the outdoors. That is why we had water dripping from inside the overhang. It seems to me that there are a lot of potential pitfalls with such a system and I would be freaking out about the possibility of water damage. I could not get to sleep the other night because I kept hearing water running and was imagining the attic being flooded! No one else seemed all that concerned about water damage, but when I was googling I did come across a story about a young couple who bought a house and only later discovered extensive water damage as a result of an overflowing water tank. Who knew?

Bill talked to the landlord today, who wanted to ask if there was any way someone could come in on Friday and look at the place. A friend of his brother might want to move in as soon as we move out. They arranged stuff and I changed my timetable. I was going to save the big "spring clean/move out clean" until the bank holiday weekend. I figured that by then we would have almost everything of ours out and that would be the last thing I had to do. I will now do it tomorrow instead, since someone will come by on Friday. There isn't a lot that needs to be done, but I will vacuum and wash the windows. The piles of stuff will just have to stay where they are for now!

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Going to Killybegs!

During our 35 years of married life, Bill and I have always made plans. We learned early to hold those plans lightly and to expect them to change. I don't think we have ever had a plan come together in exactly the way we planned it, but having a goal and an idea about how to get there provides us with a framework. The fact that we know to be flexible and to seize unexpected opportunities helps us reach the goals we set. Sometimes people ask me how we are going to do something. I always answer with our current idea and then say, "But weird stuff happens."

Weird stuff has happened over the past couple of weeks. The result of this weird stuff is that we now have two homes for the next few weeks while we take trips with our stuff to Killybegs and without our stuff back to Ballinrobe. We went to Killybegs last week to look at a terraced cottage that we had seen listed before and liked. We were in the middle of the Ballinrobe lease and could not pursue it, so someone else rented it. It came back up a few weeks ago but Bill was in no fit state to travel. We watched and waited and as soon as he felt like he could manage I called the letting agent and arranged to meet him the next day to look at the place. We said we wanted to rent it, gave him a security deposit and he contacted the owner, who agreed to rent to us. We came back to Ballinrobe last Friday then went back to Killybegs with some stuff on Thursday. We signed the lease got the keys and spent the night in our new place. We came back to Ballinrobe yesterday, leaving Killybegs on the 8 am bus.

We were both exhausted, but I snapped a few pics. I meant to take a photo of the building itself, which is a 150 year old Coast Guard Station made of stone, but as we were making our way to the bus stop yesterday morning I did not think of it and on Thursday we were busy and tired and I figured I'd do it in the morning.

I did get a few pics of some of the little things I like so much about our cottage, though I can't capture the good vibe in a photo.

For some reason, I am quite taken with these doors.

This is the door from the sitting room to the outside. There is a small enclosed entry area on the other side of the door and we turn right and go through another door to get outside. It's a good design and reminds me of the arctic entries most house in Alaska have--keeping the elements a bit removed. I find the "porthole" mirror to be a cute touch!

The kitchen door has a row of hooks along the middle--again this is a good idea because the place is very small so good to utilize the space.

Speaking of the kitchen, after we looked at the place last week I was starting to think about how I was going to grocery shop/cook without a freezer. There was an under-counter fridge with a tiny freezer compartment. We got a happy surprise when we found out that the owner, who spent a couple of days there this week cleaning and sprucing up the place, decided that this was inadequate and bought a new stand alone freezer. I think that may be bigger than the fridge! It does crowd things a little, but we might be able to move it a bit. I thought placing the magnets on there was a thoughtful touch!

He also bought a new frying pan to add to the ones there and some wine glasses. He really did a great job of making everything quite homey for us.

This is the view from the kitchen window:

We met a couple of our neighbors who do the gardening there and they are hard at work on flowers beds and the garden (yard) you see there. When the letting agent called us to say we got the place, he said that the owner asked that we not dig stuff up. We can feel free to use the garden to sit in and stuff. He asked if that was OK. It is more than OK! We have been really lucky in our last few places to have neighbors who love to plant flowers. I enjoy having plants in pots, but do not enjoy yard work in the least, so to be able to enjoy the flowers and plants while someone else does the work is quite fine with me!

When we got the lease in an email the other day I read it over and was puzzled by a line about keeping the sofa covered. I did not pay much attention to the furniture and could not remember sofa details. When we got back it was one of the first things I looked at and all became clear!

It is a futon couch which opens into a bed. He doesn't want the futon cover to get ruined. That is fine with me. The blanket on the bottom is actually a pretty decent woven mohair/wool thing which will be great in winter. For the summer I will just find a nice sheet at the charity shop and use that--it'll be cooler.

This is the rest of the sitting room:

In addition to the doors, I love the texture of the walls.

They are like that throughout. Upstairs the floors are beautiful wood. Bill took a photo but hasn't processed it yet.

The bedrooms and bathroom are really tiny. The whole place is quite small, which is great. I really love it and am glad that it stayed available long enough for Bill to get well enough to make the trip! I love the cottage and I love the town--I did not want to leave yesterday morning!

We are back In Ballinrobe for a few days and will go back to Killybegs next week with some more stuff. We have moved in a lot of different ways over the years--moving van, U-Haul, USPS, plane, and now bus! It's very handy that we don't have much stuff and that places come furnished!

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