Today’s treats.

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Today’s treat was to lallygag the length of a long beach down by Rath an Bharraigh, also known as Castlefreke. The sun shone and the breakers rolled and the sand seemed to run on forever. It’s an isolated spot and terribly unsafe for swimming so people just really go there to walk. The beach nearer to town is one of those beaches with great dunes into which middle aged men disappear to cavort in an unclad fashion with other middle aged men so we didn’t go there. Today being my wife’s birthday we dined at Leap (pronounced Lep) Inn and it did not disappoint. The local Ukulele ensemble were playing in a corner, singing away just enjoying themselves. And do you know something, my faith in Guinness has been rekindled. I had started to go off it, but this week the pints I’ve sunk have been grand. The reason I fear is that I’ve been of late drinking it in pretentious hotel bars where it is handled with disrespect by bar staff who don’t know how to pull a pint of Guinness properly. Their only concern is to get your money off you. Here in West Cork life is slow and people take the time to do things properly, like serving and drinking Guinness well. Only in unpretentious places do they do it well, and I get to use Irish while ordering, and it might take half an hour to get back to my seat with all the stories being told and people catching up with what’s going on, but it’s worth the effort so. If it’s a silly drink like an espresso martini you fancy then you’d be as well to go to a four star hotel, but for a Guinness go to somewhere with no stars but buckets of class. Furthermore, when I checked the deaths page for Belfast this evening there was no-one I know mentioned in it for today. Odd.