Life and other stuff...

Well, in just a few weeks I'll be back in my 'proper' job on the Valentia Ferry (this will be my 9th season there!) so in the meantime I'm using every chance to go beach combing!

My beach combing got covered for an online newspaper in Maine as so much of what I've been able to trace backwards seems to come from Maine -- beachcombing in the news :) I think it's a lovely piece of writing and pretty much catches who I am and what I do :)

I am just so lucky to be living where I am (back home, after about 13 years away) and having the life that I have.

There is so much rubbish still coming in after the storms; I really think it has stirred up stuff that was stuck on the bottom on the seabed or washed up on other beaches (we're finding lots of old lobster pot tags from the 1980s etc) but at the same time as finding 'trash' you also find 'treasure' too - like this teeny tiny green sea urchin :)

Recently I keep finding tiny plastic figures like these...

Who knows where they have come from (I'm guessing a lost cargo load somewhere out to sea?) but they make beachcombing even more fun.

And then I found this!  I thought it was just another plastic figure at first but it's made of china - isn't it so special??

I'm in two minds about whether to keep my lovely white horse or whether to list him in my Etsy shop...

In other news.....some time late last summer I won a night's bed and breakfast in Castlewood House in Dingle on facebook and it's only now that we finally managed to get there!

Dingle's only a couple of hour's drive away so it was perfect for a night away - this is definitely something that I would love to do again -- maybe for our wedding anniversary in September?

The bed and breakfast is just out of this world -- we had the biggest bed, the softest, snuggliest bathrobes...everything was just perfect: they even had a sachet of hot chocolate in the bedroom (as well as the regular teas/coffees etc).  We'd heard that their breakfasts were amazing but we weren't prepared for just how good it would be - I wish I'd taken a photo now. Their 'buffet' tables were just loaded to bursting with freshly made breads, different juices, cereals, fruits...you name it - and then there was the menu to choose from too -- I opted for the pancakes, which came with fruit compote and maple syrup! :D :D

While we were in Dingle I was determined to finally go and visit the Seal Sanctuary (on the outskirts of the town) -

The sanctuary got a really bad battering in the storms so they are closed to the public and will be relocating in the near future; so we had a real 'behind the scenes' tour from Ally. I even got to help with tube feeding one of the seals (little Anthony) - it was just an amazing experience...since we visited he's now able to feed himself so he doesn't need to be force fed anymore. They do just the most amazing work in rehabilitating the seals and then when they are ready, they release them back into the wild.