Like Stately Spanish Galleons Sailing Across The Sky...

Because Reuben eats a great deal...he's not overweight mind you...just has an insatiable appetite...we went to Tesco's in Carrick this afternoon to stock up on cheeses and pickle and an enormous jar of Hellman's mayonnaise...a bottle of Vodka and same of tonic for Teresa...I rather think she deserves it after hearing about her trials and tribulations with her daughter...

We went the island road way...all along the shores of the lough...so stunning this afternoon in brilliant sunshine without breath of wind...the little meadows bordering the lough are full of buttercups and dames violet...it's that pale pinky/mauve flower which grows in abundance here...sweetly scented, it attracts the early bees.

The ditches are full of vivid yellow marsh marigolds...if you've seen Ryan's Daughter you'll have seen the way they grow here...the opening scene when the British soldier steps down from the 'bus to see the village idiot clutching a huge bunch of those beautiful flowers...

There is a long closed school right where the river runs into the lough...a small school of course...just the one room, with the toilet block at the back...it would have been a lovely place to learn the three r's...surrounded by meadows and water in the middle of nowhere in particular...someone has bought the tiny cottage where the school teacher lived...it's been empty for years, they've put colourful window boxes on the sills and have a pile of timber ready to be used...

On one of the pieces of land which juts out into the lough there is a babies burial ground...quite how it can be reached I've no idea...it's clearly marked on the ordinance map but the lane or boreen to it has long disappeared...

It's on this Lough's shores that you can find heaps of mussel shells...not recent heaps either...these date way back to around four thousand years ago when the people who lived here took full advantage of the food available...

After struggling a bit in Tesco's...then finding the tubing for the ambulant oxygen had kinked back on itself...no wonder I was finding breathing difficult...couldn't face Lidls as well.

But we did stop at the garden centre...this is the place where a robin nests inside the shop and they have a stone deaf white cat who sleeps on a tatty cushion among the house plants...there's a dear little spaniel as well, though we didn't see her today. Millie used to love going there...it's animal friendly with dishes of water and the staff always stop whatever they're doing for a pat...

I just stand and look and am bewildered by choices...the shocking pink Bizzy Lizzy or the bright red...French flat parsley or the curled...Chocolate Mint or the ordinary sort...there was a girl watering the bedding plants...three for €10 ...but I like them all I tell her and she smiles and says have the ones that speak to you...so I did.

It was hot all afternoon...white clouds, like stately Spanish Galleons drifted across the sky...by the time we came home I was too tired to plant out the new herbs and trailing flowers...

They'll be there tomorrow...