Sunday's Irish Hunk of the Day!

I went for a bit of a nature walk Saturday morning. First I went down to Golden's Cove, which wasn't very pretty at low tide.

















These two plants were growing side by side. I'm thinking this one is broom, which has no thorns...

And this one is the gorse, which is very prickly.

Then I went on Golden's Walk, which is a little path through the woods that runs alongside the driveway to the hotel. Except for the sound of a lawnmower nearby and the fact that part of the path is gravel (some places were a bit muddy) you'd never know you were anywhere near civilization.

















The Irish woods are more people-friendly than the woods back home. Although I've seen several plants I recognize--plantain, ferns, violets, and mullein--I have yet to see so much as a single sprig of poison ivy. I can't stray off the path back home in the spring and summer without long pants and boots.

These little yellow flowers are everywhere. No idea what they are, though. Buttercups, perhaps?

Scenes like these made me want to start checking for leprechauns, but I didn't see a one.

And now for a brief discussion of Irish (and English, since they were also like this in London's Heathrow airport) plumbing and electricity. I don't think I've seen a restroom sink yet that had a single tap with hot and cold knobs. They all have a separate tap for hot and cold. I've been compensating for the lack of warm water by turning on both taps, catching a handful of cold, then adding the hot to wash my face. You can only stop up the drain with the little rubber plug that's sitting there on the right.

However, the kitchen sink has a shared tap, which makes me wonder why they've never made the switch on the other sinks. Hmm....


















The toilets flush back instead of down, and the flush handle is longer and is located on the right, rather than the left.

They heat rooms with these, rather than a forced-air system.

And they have two kinds of outlets. One that takes flat prongs and has switches that turn each outlet on and off.

And another kind with no switches and round prongs. 

Then there's the washer/dryer combo in our room--something I'd never seen before.

First, it washes your clothes, then you stop it, take the clothes out, let it dry out for a bit, and then put half of the clothes back in. It spins one way for a while, then stops and spins the other direction. Then you do that with the other half of the load. It takes FOREVER to get the clothes dry. I told Sam we'd just take the dirty clothes home and wash them there, otherwise, we'd be doing laundry 'til doomsday.

I can't say this makes me appreciate our high efficiency washer any more than I did, (I absolutely HATE the damn thing and want to go back to the old style with an agitator) but certainly makes me appreciate the dryer!

That afternoon, Mikey and I walked into Sneem for lunch at the Hungry Knight, where they claim to have the best fish & chips in Ireland. I can't vouch for the whole of Ireland, but the fish was very good!

We strolled through Sneem, which had been taken over by busloads of French and German tourists, then climbed down the steps beside the bridge to the river.

Mikey ventured out further than I did (I took this picture from the bridge),

but I was able to get a nice shot of the river from under the bridge.

We walked back to the hotel and down Golden's Path again. These flowers looked like wild roses, but they were something completely different. No idea what they are.

We walked on down to the cove... 

...which looked much nicer at high tide. This is a view of the hotel from the dock.

And this is facing the other direction.

This is a little further down the shore. The ground got a bit boggy past the point where Mike is standing, so we didn't go any farther. 

We went back and sat on the rocks (where I'm standing in the previous picture) at the water's edge watching the tide come in. Very peaceful. 

 And now for Sunday's hunk! I suppose he could be Irish...

LOL! If we could only see the outlet that lamp is plugged into, we'd know for sure!