Greystones

Today the N3 and the M50 Motorway took us south of Dublin, to Greystones, a delightful little hamlet nestled along the coast in County Wicklow.  Howard and Catherine joined us for the trip to visit Frank and Anne.  Frank was married to my cousin Ruth who passed away one month after our visit in 2005.  We were really pleased to see Frank again and meet Anne for the first time.      

Frank emailed us before we left Australia because he had heard that we were doing the Coast to Coast walk.  It's always been on his bucket list.  I was amazed, as he told us what an incredible thing we had accomplished.  This was just after he told us about climbing Mt Kilimanjaro and walking on Mont Blanc!  We left them our Stedman's Coast to Coast book as an inspiration for them to plan their own walk across England.  Both Frank and Anne love walking and bike riding, gardening and cooking.  Anne fed us the most amazing meal during the day - I think we ate for about five hours!!

Their garden is an absolute treasure and a pleasure to  wander around.  Their house sits on over an acre of land, with the back yard sloping upwards to give a stunning view of the ocean.      The sea is a bit washed out but it's there!

Allan and myself came away with many new ideas for our own garden, including a list of trees to plant when we get home,

Like this little beauty - Cornus kousa chinensis, It's a dogwood and 

looks beautiful in the middle of the deck

The veggie patch would make an Italian envious!   We ate a good part of our meal straight from here, including the best spuds. 

The apples in the pie came from this tree 

 Behind the pittostram hedge is another veggie plot and that's  a hot house behind the conifers - they call them poly tunnels over here.  

When you sit in the  sunroom at the front of the house, you can see the ocean.  A lovely spot to sit with a cuppa.

 The deck,  where we ate dessert and enjoyed a lovely sunny day.  Yah, the sun does shine two days in a row in Ireland! 

We weren't the only ones who enjoyed the garden.  This is a bumble bee. 

We finished the day with photos to remind us of a wonderful, happy day.