The Ireland Diaries | Inchydoney Beach Birthday, Clonakilty Shopping & Skibbereen Farmer's Markets

Monday, June 05, 2017

Hello and welcome to the last part of my Ireland Diaries. I know it took me quite a while to get them all up but what with all the recent life changes blogging just didn't come that easy. Anyways, I'm here to tell you about my last couple of days on the island.

Friday was Good Friday and better even, it was my birthday! Now with my luck obviously my birthday fell on the one day where all Irish pubs and bars are closed and no alcohol is sold but we knew early on that that wasn't gonna keep us from having a nice day. So in the morning I had a little bit of a lie in , then had breakfast with Audrey and her mum and even got surprised with some pressies. It was a lovely morning! My friend then had to get to work that day so I spent the morning with her mum and the dogs, driving to Inchydoney Beach and having a nice long walk through the dunes. I absolutely loved it there! The weather was nice and lots of families were out enjoying their Bank Holiday. Inchydoney Beach is so so pretty, I don't even think I ever got to walk through dunes before so that morning made me real happy and I didn't even mind taking 5 kilos of sand back home with me in my boots haha!

After our walk I was dropped off in Clonakilty town centre where I did some damage to my bank account. But if it's your birthday you're allowed to right? I got the loveliest things in all of the cute little shops along the High street and fell in love with all the streetfood and market stalls in that little courtyard I found. I then had lunch with my friend, headed back to the house and watched a DVD while the weather decided to change for the worse and it actually started to rain for the first time (and the last time too) since I arrived in Ireland. When my friend came home from work we had dinner and started to reduce the beer and wine stock of the house! There was lots of laughing and a lesson on how many versions of the name Evan there are in Irish :-) It was a perfect birthday all round!

On Saturday, Audrey, her sister Rachel and myself got in the car and made our way to Skibbereen, where we wanted to visit a little crafts market. Skibbereen is such a cute little town with coloured houses and lots of creative people. We had a look around several charity shops before we came across a farmer's market where we then spent a good amount of our time that day. There was lots of delicious looking food and so many lovely crafts and bits I would have loved to get if I hadn't been too scared to break them taking them home in my suitcase. We then tried to find the crafts fair we came for which turned out to be quite a small affair. There was one stall though I immediately fell in love with. It was handmade jewellery using real flowers and plants and obviously I couldn't resist that, I'm such a sucker for all things gemstones and flowers haha! I got a pretty necklace that I'll show you in a different post. So after we walked around for a couple hours and filled our tummies with yummy food we headed back to Cork and had a quiet night in watching the telly and enjoying some soup and pizza.

On Sunday it was time to say good bye. I was actually quite sad to leave I had such an amazing time! But oh well, back to reality it was. I packed my suitcase, which was now significantly harder to zip up then it had been when I left Germany exactly a week earlier and caught the bus on Patrick's Quay once more. The bus journey back to Dublin seemed to take at least twice as long as the journey from Dublin to Cork 7 days earlier and was so packed that it took me 10 minutes to get my drink out of my bag without elbowing my neighbour. But I arrived at Dublin Airport eventually and everything went smoothly from there.

I've been back home now for well over a month already but the memories are still so vivid and I actually miss being there more then I have ever done after a holiday anywhere else (except of course London but that's a whole other story and you all know it by now I guess :-) ). So Ireland really won my heart and I can't wait to get back and see more. My list of places I wanna visit is far from checked off, maybe Northern Ireland next? Who knows, I'll keep you guys updated! ;-)

Lots of Love,
Jess xx