Walking On The Flaggy Shore

Yesterday the sun was shining and there was no storm blowing. We haven't had a day this good for a while so we decided to get out for a walk while we had the chance. As always we brought Sheba, our German Shepherd, and for the first time we brought little Eppie, our five month old puppy who hasn't walked this far with us before.

We headed for the Flaggy Shore. The Flaggy Shore is in northern Clare and is one of nine sites of geological importance recognised by Unesco. It is one of our favourite places to walk because of its beautiful views and shore line. It is also very close to where we live and I consider it part of my fictitious Ballyyahoo area.

We were shocked when we arrived to find the road we normally drive along to park our car had been washed away by the storm. All that remained were the stones. Most of the rocks and boulders are grey limestone but there is also some granite and sandstone. 

In fact the landscape is very different from our last walk. Not just the roads gone but whole fields have become lakes. This below was a grazing field. It is now a lake edged by tons of seaweed. 

This used to be a road that turned into another grazing field but this is all that remains. 

Again you can see the remain of the road in the photograph below. The surface has been washed away and the surrounding fields look like part of a bay - they weren't before!

Sheba loves swimming and she quickly got herself in the freezing salt water to enjoy herself in what used to be a field.

 As we walked on we found a large length of the road still okay but as we went further we found the road had disappeared into the water. The area to the left used to be a field!

This is a closer view of the water. You can see the long grass just floating below the surface.

We couldn't walk through this river/road so we decided to climb this stone wall and cross the field to avoid it. Eppie wasn't sure whether she wanted to go over the wall but in the end she went for it.

We all made it over the wall and after the crossing the boggy field we had another wall to climb.

The Flaggy shore walk is great as an easy walk - you don't have to back track because it loops around to take you back to where you started and there are no shortage of beautiful sights as you go along.  

This horse was quite tame and happily trotted up to the wall to be closer. 

Despite the damage, the walk along the Flaggy shore is still very enjoyable and beautiful but I can't help thinking about those whose land and property has been damaged by the recent storms and floods and hope that they can recover from this. 

If You Went Down To The Woods Today

BALLYYAHOO WOODS

The woods I describe in my Ballyyahoo books are inspired by different woodlands. Many of them are in Wicklow where I lived most of my life, one in Wexford and several in Galway.

We went to Kilcolgan woods today. We are regular visitors to this woods as it is not too far away from our home. We have had such stormy weather lately we weren't sure what we would find but we were very pleasantly surprised. The dark relentless rain of the morning gave way to scattered showers by mid-morning. As we began walking, the sun trickled through the treetops and dropped a dappled chain of light throughout the trails.

The rain seems to have given rise to a lush growth of ivy, ferns and moss everywhere we looked. This tree below had fallen, yet it appeared to have given birth to two baby trees that were growing vertically despite their position on the sunny diagonal of the trunk.

BIRTH OF A TREE

ON THE FOREST BED

These two pictures show different portions of a rather graceful looking piece of trunk. This rested on the forest bed as though gently placed there by nature herself while she decided how best to depict their beauty.

FERN

As we walked through the paths we passed a great deal of ferns like this one below. I think these ferns are looking more fully formed and lush than their sisters of last years.

LESSER KNOWN ROSES

Nature placed the branch to which these little brown cones were attached gently across a bed of ivy and moss. She couldn't have positioned them any more perfect in my opinion because the cones look like little brown flowers from a lesser known species of rose. 

THE CHOPPED DOWN TREE

The contrast between the sharp cut of the chopped down tree and nature's own tangle of branches caught my eye. 

MOSS ON A ROCK

Behind this moss covered rock, the bare trunks of the trees seem to have sprang from another, more barren climate, yet they can only exist together. I love the way the fern hangs down like feathers.

FAIRY GLADES

It is easy to see how the idea of fairies came about when you look at these glades. Who else could you imagine living here other than those tiny translucent creatures. Fairies could hide so easily in the small crevices in the rocks, take shelter from the rain underneath the ferns and of course sit down on the softest of seats made from moss!

FLOOD POND

At the end of one of the trails we came to this recently formed pond. This is the only part of the woods that flooded. This was surprising considering the amount of nearby fields that have been transformed into lakes, complete with confused looking cows clinging to their boundary hedgerows.The line across the water is a row of wooden slats placed there for cyclists, none of whom braved the woods today.

A REST FOR THE WEARY

There are always plenty of resting places in the woods but this is my favourite. The soft blanket of moss shields you from the coldness of the rock below.

If rocks could whisper I would have heard it say 'sit down.' 

The Calm After The Storm

Bay At 'Ballyyahoo.'

This week saw an end to the storms that hit Ireland after Christmas. The damage around the bay is being cleaned up and anything that washed up in the storms is being moved up the pier.

THE OYSTER BED

My walks to this little bay have become even more interesting because each day when I arrive down I am greeted by something new and unusual.

The first and biggest thing to arrive was this oyster bed. It had broken up during the storm and a local farmer dragged it up the pier with a tractor and left it on this grassy area. I think its years being churned around the Atlantic and has bestowed it with a quiet beauty and I think it holds its own against the landscape.

Oyster Bed at Ballyyahoo

THE COLOUR OF ROPE

This is the view from underneath. It is a huge structure and I have no idea what it is made of but to me the pipes look like huge bones. The ropes dangling down are all different colours and wonderfully  strange.

What Lies Beneath The Oyster bed.

THE SCENT OF THE SEA

This is a side view. You can get more of a sense of its size in this photograph. I wish you could smell it as it is surprisingly fresh.

Side view

ROLL IN THE BARRELS

This little lot arrived a few days after the oyster bed. The blue barrels in the crate seemed to appear with the black square of pipe so maybe they were connected in their former life.

Roll Out The Barrels

NATURE ROCKS

This large block with a chain attached was next. It is very large and heavy and it must have been some kind of anchor. I have no idea how something this size got broken and washed up but then again I am pretty sure nature can trounce anything we can make!

Chained up


That's all for now. Happy January
Grace

Water Water Everywhere

I have always lived quite close to the sea. Even growing up in Liverpool we weren’t too far away – a bus ride and a fifteen-minute walk to the River Mersey.

Being landlocked would be a nightmare for me. I honestly don’t think I could stand it. When I visit places in the midlands here in Ireland I always like to find the nearest river or lake and go for a walk. I seem to need proximity to water in order to relax.

When I used to live in County Wicklow I was a mile away from the sea and when we moved to Galway we decided to look for a place as close to the sea as we could get without being in danger of being flooded.

COUNTY WICKLOW

Greystones, County Wicklow

KINVARA

We succeeded in finding a place exactly a mile from the sea near Kinvara and we are now within walking distance of this beautiful little bay and pier below.

GALWAY

This little beach is also very near and we enjoyed some great swimming there last summer.

COUNTY CLARE

The beach below is just in County Clare and is part of the Burren. It is a favourite for walkers in the area and forms a loop around a small peninsula.

GALWAY

This bay in Maree runs out to the Atlantic. This is another favourite walk of mine and I was very lucky to be around on one of the rare occasions when the wind was quiet and the water was still enough to cast these reflections.

BALLYYAHOO 

The Kinvara area and the surrounding areas of the Burren and Maree provide much of the inspiration for my Ballyyahoo stories and sites.

Ballyyahoo In Pictures

STILL WATERS

Welcome to ‘Ballyyahoo in Pictures.' This is where I post the images I collect on my daily walks as well as the ones that inspired my stories from Ballyyahoo.

WHERE IS BALLYYAHOO?

If you’re wondering where on earth is Ballyyahoo is, I'm afraid I can't tell you exactly. If I did tell you I'd have to kill you so all I say is that it’s in the Galway bay area of Ireland but you won’t find it on a map.

A CLEAR HEAD

I will tell you that I am not a photographer, I am a writer, but a daily walk clears my head for my writing and the photographs I take inspire me and so... you get the picture!

GET OUT

The images I am going to post here are ones that inspire me and inform my work, particularly when I am writing my Ballyyahoo series of stories for children and I hope the stories inspire them to get out and about.

WHY?

Well you see I was brought up in the inner city of Liverpool. It was grimy, grey and could be a dangerous place for a child. Still I was lucky!

My Liverpool home

Every summer I was taken to visit my granny in Ireland and every day for six whole weeks I was given my freedom. I could go wherever I could walk or cycle to and there were no limits, just as long as I was back in time for tea

FREEDOM

To me nature and freedom are the same thing and because I know how important that yearly taste of freedom was to my childhood I feel passionate about encouraging children to love nature too.

I do this by writing stories set in the natural surroundings of Ballyyahoo and I invite children to come and celebrate nature, freedom and fun on Ballyyahoo's own little site.

I hope the pictures you see here will inspire you and don’t forget you are warmly invited to visit me at Ballyyahoo as well.

Bye for now.

Grace