Craic in Cork

Back after a relaxing few days in Cork. We usually try to get away in January and go abroad if possible but this year neither of us were in the mood of travelling for 2 days plus it was going to be a tight window between selling bulls to the factory and cows calving so we decided to stay in Ireland. A load of bulls went on Wednesday morning just before we headed off.

After asking for recommendations on facebook, we opted to stay in the Maryborough Hotel in Cork, as we were only going for a few days, I wanted to stay in a nice hotel – with the pool for the kids. ?It was nice, my only criticism was that the room wasn’t that large, we knew it would be a sofa bed for the kids but the room was tight enough, we didn’t ?spend much time in it as the kids are old enough to stay up late but if you’d small kids and putting them to bed earlier, it would be tight.

We visited the Model train centre in Clonakilty, our last time there was 7 years ago when Will was only 3. Like the last time, it was a cold but sunny day and we virtually had the place to ourselves.

Clonakilty is a lovely little town, bright shop fronts with lots of small independent shops. ?Up to last year, the kids would get hugely excited whenever they saw a toy shop, this time, it was book shops that created the excitement this time!

Holidaying with a farmer means that while driving along, he spends half the time looking over the ditches looking at what is growing in the fields and in Cork’s case, it was usually admiring the green grass in the milder climes with drier land down there!

We went to see Alice in Wonderland in Cork Opera House too, it was brilliant. No celebrity in it and I think it was the better for it, sometimes the celebrities can be painful! ?Great one liners, excellent staging, good songs and very relevant quips – with even the horse burgers being mentioned! ?Those horse burgers deserve a blog post of their own but I’m sick and tired of hearing about them. ?The fact remains that horse meat won’t kill any of us but of more concern, are all these fillers that go into these cheap burgers and just aren’t traceable. ?It does emphasise you get exactly what you pay for, you can’t expect the 6 burgers in a supermarket for ?2 to be the same as the burgers that are ?1.50 each in a butchers. I hope that more people decide to shop in butchers for their meat as a result.

Cork City Gaol is also worth a visit. Well laid out, recounting stories of past prisoners and how they lived with models in many of the cells. ?I was quite excited when I saw they had their own blog but on just checking it, it hasn’t been updated for over a year!

Mitchelstown Caves was good too – interesting to see the caverns, amazing to see the towers and their size and to hear how they were formed so many million years ago. ?I fully applaud the bravery of the tourists who visited in the 1830s and all the decades before electrification and steps were installed – somehow clambering down in long skirts with a candle on a rope ladder wouldn’t be my cup of tea.

St Anne’s Church with its tower is impressive too, we had a go at ringing the bells on the way up and then when we were right beside the bells, someone else rang them – just as well we had the ear muffs!

One of the things that Kate loves about going away is eating out so apart from eating at the hotel, she thoroughly enjoyed eating out at a Chinese and an Italian.

It was only 4 days away but it felt like a decent break away and here we are, refreshed and ready for the calving to start in two weeks time.