There's A Grand Stretch In The Evenings....

Hotel Isaacs, 48 MacCurtain Street, Cork

Hubby and I have returned once more to our favourite spot in West Cork, namely Allihies. This time we decided rather than make the five plus hours straight journey we'd stop overnight in Cork City so chose the Hotel Isaacs as our place of rest. An excellent choice as our room was absolutely huge, more like an apartment, separate bedroom, living/kitchen and massive bathroom, and above all for me, it was a Victorian building!

As we didn't have to check out until 12.00pm we headed into Patrick Street to do a bit of window shopping and came upon a food market, the likes I'd never seen before. It's known as Cork English Market and is just off Patrick Street. We must have spent a half an hour walking around it and even at that we didn't see all of it. The mixed aromas of herbs and spices and baked breads were a real feast for the old schnozzle!

Speaking of breads, I was able to buy a lovely brown bread which was yeast-free, dairy-free and sugar-free only unfortunately to discover after three days of eating it that my chest became clogged up after years of being gunge-free! It was the wheat that did it so I'm now back on my boring old rice cakes.


So, at around 4.00pm last Monday we arrived at our holiday home in Allihies. As soon as I walked into the house I felt I had entered our second home, everywhere had a wonderful familiarity about it. The landscape is just as we left it at the end of last year. Back in Dublin pre-recession times another apartment block would have sprouted in that short time space.


We've arrived at a lovely time of year when you can clearly notice the longer stretch in the evenings, twilight now not decending over the countryside until well after 6.30pm as the image above shows. I'm looking forward to living in this beautiful part of Ireland through all four seasons this time and experiencing their every change of colour, smell and sound. Well, three of my five senses will be in Heaven!