We had contrasting weather during our five days in Ahakista last week.

We arrived late at night and in the dark and woke up on Sunday morning to clear blue skies and still air. We were able to eat our breakfast outside sat round the green plastic table, drinking coffee and then more coffee, as the children drifted awake. It was warm enough to go out on the water and kayaks were taken out to look for seals.

Monday was grey and damp and good for a trip to Schull and lunch in Hackett’s, six of us, squeezed up to and around the small table in the back. The table is not much wider than a bench for sitting on and our plates and glasses pushed up and against each other and we were elblow to elbow eating our soups and stews and toasted sandwiches. Even in Schull there are familiar faces and at the bar I bumped into Wally who normally works the Olive stall at Bantry Market on a Friday morning.

Two of us went for a walk that afternoon up in the hills near were Curly lived. The rain came down in a thick mist that covered my glasses and reduced everything to a blur of colour.

On Tuesday afternoon we went for a walk at about the same time in the afternoon. It wasn’t raining but there were heavy clouds in the sky as we left the Cottage. We went up the road that leads up from Ahakista Stream and which carries on up to the hills that lie beneath Rosskerring. I had done the walk a few years before and could remember a loop that crossed over an old path to lead the way back down to the Cottage.

As we walked up the clouds cleared and the sun came out and we found ourselves taking off layers to cool ourselves down. I managed to avoid making any wrong turnings until we came to a place where the road ran out and we had to turn left down a green covered track that soon dissolved into a small covered path that run along and over a muddy stream.

Back on a road we walked past a field with some nosy bullocks ho came over curious to see who was passing them by.