The Tourist Trail From Hell and More Laughs Than You Can Poke a Stick At. Sunday 17th May 2009.

We often laugh at the Irish for their funny ways – after today I can see why. We began a tourist trail covering the countryside of Cavan and surrounding drumlins for which we had found a glossy, fold out map and directions at the Cavan tourist office. What a disaster it was! The rain fell on and off all day, the heavens seemed to open up when John and Rob decided to climb a stile to go for a pee up a lane way.

Our first stop on the trail was at ‘The Workhouse’ in the tiny village of Bawnboy. The workhouse was barricaded off with no trespassing signs all over it. Why have something on a tourist trail if you are not allowed to see it we wonder? We laugh and continue onto number two attraction, a loch. To this day we are still looking for it. You would think with five intelligent people in a car we would have found our way but we didn’t. We turned this way and that up narrow lanes with hedgerows almost brushing the side of the car, over stone bridges crossing flowing streams, we searched everywhere. So, we had only seen attraction number one, and we really hadn’t seen it at all because we could not enter, we couldn’t find number two – it was already lunch time. Our sides were sore with laughing. The remedy – stop for lunch. We happened across Peter Brady (not the one from the Brady Bunch) and his dog ‘Jock’ as we snooped around the Ballyconnell Lock. We asked him if he could recommend a good place to eat. I found his answer rather amusing. You really must try to imagine his answer as it was given, with a thick Irish accent coming from an elderly man with grey hair and bushy beard to match, cheery eyes punctuating his ruddy face. It went like this:
“Sure tere’s a great meal to be had at The Angler’s Rest. Keep walkin’ down here along the loch and you’ll come to a wee bridge, go over it and go for a while, turn into town and you’ll see it for sure. But tey do a big meal tere now, you wouldn’t be wantin’ tat. So go to Supa Value and you’ll get a good dinner in tere. You take the car and drive through town and out da oter side, you’ll see it on da right for sure, they do a great meal in tere, but tere closed on a Sunday so you won’t be wantin’ tat.” ??? Why give directions to tow places that we won’t be wanting? Sounds Irish to me!

We did go to The Angler’s Rest and had a huge meal as Peter had said. The Carvery was on as it is every Sunday, the dining room was full and the laughter flowed. I had roast lamb with all the trimmings, the boys were happy with their noses in the feed bag.

The tour itself was rather unspectacular but the company and the scenery along the way was delightful, I think the flavour we added with our craic and all our wrong turns made it a wonderful day. The highlight was the ruins of Drumlane Abbey, set high on the rolling drumlins.

While John was taking photos of a blanket of white flowers we had spotted from the road, we found a few donkeys who Rob called over for a pat. They started off so friendly but one became cranky and started to bite its mate, he was nasty and eeeawwwed loudly. If I could speak donkey language I would hate to hear what he was saying.

Lilly and I made chicken and fried rice for dinner. As is the pattern, we sit around the table every night after dinner chatting away.