Sometimes the events that test you just come out of the blue, from the left field, from the place that you least expected. Today we had one of those. Little Sherafey the horse has been on her own since poor Mabel died a month ago, and to be honest her field looks...
This week began with the building of the new fireplace, which will be home to our gas bottle woodburner. As you can see it’s pretty dark there, and so the next job was to tackle the roof windows. I’d looked around everywhere for second hand veluxes, but no...
We were fortunate enough to be asked to our friends – Steven and Belinda – wedding last week, at the amazing Belle Isle in Fermanagh. The wedding was on midsummers day, and we were treated to a visit from aughakillymaude mummers, based in Fermanagh. The...
In my quest to find the missing bits of the cooker, I decided to go through the many tins and boxes of old scrap out in the shed. Finding an old dried milk tin, I gave it a good shake (as you do), and decided it must be full of nuts and bolts. Imagine my surprise when...
One of the first questions most people ask when they stumble into the cottage and view the destruction, is “has it got a damp proof course”. Rather than my immediate response, which would be “are you f**king blind, its a 300 year old pile of stones...
Well, thats the end of the second week living here at Lackan Cottage Farm, although it feels like we’ve been here months. Despite my impatience to get the building work sorted, I’ve come to the conclusion that a rest day is pretty much unavoidable once a...
Well, this renovation / smallholding caper is certainly one of extremes. I began this week by exploring the woods opposite our land, walking over Lackan Bog, which is an amazing area of peat bog that has been colonised by birch woodland. Totally peaceful, and teeming...
Without doubt the best time of the day, and here is dawn breaking over the lake at the end of the road. The mist has just rolled down from the mountains, and you can imagine that almost anything could lie beyond it.
Ok, so here is the view from where I am sitting at the laptop, and rather fine it is too. I think we are still at the stage where we keep wandering about just staring at the amazing place in which we find ourselves. For instance, if I look away from the mountains, I...
The last week has been a mad whirlwind as we arrive on site. Our truck got towed in on Monday, and amazingly, I managed to reverse it into the little drive and park up in front of the cottage. At this point we discovered just how much the drive slopes…..Cue some...
Blogging from the phone now as we have no proper Internet. Explored our woods today and found a little cabin hidden away..Some great clearings for camping, so exciting things ahead there.
Do you know this sheep? Or at least what breed she might be? She looked at us with a very enquiring air yesterday as we passed her by at the Balmoral Show, so we stopped for a chat. Balmoral was fascinating, and we could have spent days wandering round. These chaps...
