Orangery

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Floor-to-Ceiling Windows

Tomato and Pepper Crostini

Ode to Julie and Julia........

Not sure to which one more....... Julia Child aka Meryl or the actual food blogger Julie Powell..... But in that juicy movie detailing the real-life passions of a Yankee food blogger, the said food blogger, makes a very juicy looking crostini for her and her husband, it is over this very crostini that Julie decides to take on Child's great work, Mastering the Art of French Cooking, and to blog about her adventures..........

Here's what you'll need.....

1/2 red pepper
1/2 yellow pepper
10 cherry tomatoes
A handful of chopped basil
1/2 red onion
1/2 glove crushed garlic
A good glug of olive oil
A good glug of balsamic vinegar
A fresh Vienna roll

You'll need to......

Wash and chop/crush/slice your vegetables and fruit (tomatoes) and throw them into a bowl and cover in oil and vinegar until they look like this.....

Leave them all hang out together for a while, 10 minutes will do but the longer the better and tastier. Meanwhile slice up your roll and toast, when toasted put a little bit of olive oil on the bread and spoon on the tomatoes, peppers, onions and basil........

Sheer divinity. And that's it then!

Greenacres

I love getting a bite to eat somewhere you can browse around afterwards and pick up a few bits in their shop there, basically somewhere that's that bit more than just a restaurant or a cafe.

Greenacres in Wexford town have a nice lunch and dinner menu. Have great breads and a deli with preserves and olives and sun-dried tomatoes and there's an art gallery there too. Oh and they have lots of fancy wines for sale too.

It's in this gorgeous building......

Me and my date just got a light lunch each.

I went for the goat's cheese, walnut salad with balsamic dressing and it looked like this.....

The date went for the anti pasta meat plate that came with a little Kilner jar filled with pesto......

After we'd gobbled up our lunch, we had ours outdoors (the heatwave), they have lovely outdoor seating, one of the few places in Wexford/Ireland, we went inside to see if they had any of their amazing Guinness bread left to purchase......... they didn't..... devastation...... it sells out everyday, we were just too late......so we went for the tomato and olive bread instead......

And we got some of their lovely olives to bring home with us too.

But honestly - the Guinness bread....... will try get recipe.

http://www.greenacres.ie/

Lugala Days

If you want to head out to the wilds of Wicklow but not meet every Tom, Dick and Dublin Harry then Lugala and the Knocknacloghoge walk is a pretty safe, non-crowded one to do.

Park your car at the black gate seen here, go through the gate and just start walking down, down, down...... through the old Guinness estate, by all the deer and over little bridges and through great big, tall trees. It takes two hours to Lough Tay and back but bring a picnic, it's gorgeous down there.

That's an old scouts cottage I think........

OK, so the full route is here.

And here's what you'll discover along the way.

Looks like Canada doesn't it? Oh yeah it's where they filmed parts of the Vikings with Gabriel Byrne, I'll show you the lake when we get there - it's at the end. This is one of the many bridges you'll cross. See, not a sinner?

And after this bridge you'll head along this green path....... 

And this is where you'll see the fields of wild deer.......

You'll eventually come to the scouts cottage (let's just call it that).......

Before arriving at Lough Tay where Vikings is being filmed.

Up to the right there is where the big, fancy Guinness house is nowadays. Climb Djouce and you'll see it from above.

After all that exertion, we chilled by the river with all the midges.........

And had our picnic...... 

Before heading home the way we came past the fields with all the deer and rabbits.......

Glendalough and the Spinc

Another spectacular glacial valley in Ireland that is the well trodden is Glendalough in Co Wicklow.

That photo was taken really early one Saturday or Sunday morning, two summers ago and it turned out to be a scorchio day so me and my pal Susan even ended up going for a dip in the little rock pools on our way back.

But the rest of the snaps were taken on a recent and dull, wet and very windy, average Irish day.

This is the route we took, the White Route http://www.wicklowmountainsnationalpark.ie/walkingtrails.html, which starts at this little waterfall....

Before beginning the steep ascent up these sleepers......

You go up 600 of these and then come out on top of the valley and walk all along the top of the cliff until it starts to meet a river...... and you come to this bridge.....

If you run out of water worry not you can have some of the fresh stream water to quench your climbing thirst, well we drank it anyway and we're still alive.....

After you cross the bridge you'll have a view something like this.....

See the lake in the background? That's where you'll have come from.......

You'll keep walking all along this big, powerful flow of water, it had been raining heavily, so it was a fearsome flow the day we went.....

Keep descending and just as you arrive on the flat you'll get to the old mining village.......

Here we are exploring after our big climbing expedition.........

You'll then walk back along the shore of the lake to the car park. It costs 2 euro to park so have change. It's really not that tough of a walk at all, the initial ascent is a bit hard going at first but the rest is a doodle and the views are fantastic all along the way. Walking very fast and without a break you can do it in 2 hours but just taking it handy it'll take 3.