Category Archives: family

Memories of 2023

My initial plan was to pick one photo to highlight my favourite memory of each other month. I struggled to pick just one a couple of times so here simply are my favourite memories of 2023

Happy New Year Everyone 🥳 🥳 🥳

January

Gortin Glen Forest Park in the snow. Summiting Mullaghcarn and meeting Darach the Giant.

February

A bushcraft wild camp under a tarp in Monellan Forest. Thoroughly enjoyed sleeping so open and wakening to the birds in the trees.

March

Our baby turned 15 and somehow managed to turn into a young man this year!

April

Catriona and myself had a wonderful 4 days in Paris as my early birthday present. Both of us enjoyed this trip so much.

May

My busiest month with a hike in the Bluestack Mountains and a long planned summit of Croaghgorm itself.

A trip to the Mourne Mountains for a fantastic meet up with friends I’ve made from YouTube, a hike and a wild camp. I can’t wait for the repeat in 2024.

The month finished off in celebration as Conor won the u16 Cup with Castlefinn Celtic.

June

A hot and turbulent month with lots of thunderstorms that required careful planning for hiking. This was the most impressive.

July

After much anticipation I finally turned 50. It was a relief to finally pass this milestone and we marked it with a fabulous family meal at The Red Door restaurant near Buncrana.

August

Another big trip when the 4 of us went to Manchester in advance of Owen’s 18th Birthday. A home game at the opening of the season versus Wolves. Yet another great family event for all of us.

September

I finally managed to complete my 2023 Challenge to walk The Bluestack Way in a Day. 52km and something I really wasn’t sure I had in me.

October

A rare sunny day in October encouraged me to get moving and on this day I was unable to keep Rosie at home. Despite deteriorating hips she was determined to enjoy a day in Monellan Forest.

November

A visit to Murvagh Beach outside Donegal Town to explore the far end of the beach and Bell’s Isle. I can’t wait to return here for a wild camp in the Spring.

December

A trip to Donegal Town allowed me a chance to revisit The Bluestack Way around Lough Eske were I had the most amazing views over the lough and a fantastic walk through Ardnamona Nature Reserve.

What better way to round off the month and the year than a visit to help my Great Aunt Ruby celebrate her 108th birthday on New Year’s Eve. A phenomenal woman that can still surprise me with stories I’ve never heard ❤️

Done and Dusted…

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It seems like I’ve been almost 50 for ever. It’s one of those milestones that seems to carry a lot of significance and one I haven’t really been looking forward to. This will give some of you a giggle but 50 just seems old (or at least it used to!).

The protracted nature of turning 50 has been exaggerated by going to Paris as a present for both of us back in April and then getting a surprise birthday cake and balloons at a family get together at the beginning of June.

Last Friday saw the day finally dawn. Like most things we build up in our head it was just another day after all. No earth shattering revelations and no sudden aging process occurred. It appears that I’m still me, just one day older.

I’d booked the weekend off work and while we had “plans” only one was organised. We went out for a meal on Saturday night (Friday wasn’t available) to The Red Door near Buncrana. This is a much more upmarket location than what we’re normally used to and the meal was pretty damn good as expected.

Other plans were discussed, rescheduled and then abandoned as the weather teased us before finally disappointing us but all in all I had a great weekend that was completely family orientated, as it should be 🙂

My wife does like pointing out to me that I don’t seem to realise what age I am and still think I’m 25 but I guess now it’s time to enjoy being fifty-something and discovering what this actually means. Then I can spend a few years stressing about turning 60….which really does feel old 🤣

murder hole beach

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The original plan for today was to go for a hillwalk but waking up this morning with congested sinuses for the second day in a row I decided to call it off. I think the recent high temps and hayfever are to blame and with temps forecasted in the high 20s today I didn’t think it would be enjoyable.

During the week we bought a new (to us) car so we figured today would be a good day to head out for a longer drive to get a really good feel for it and to visit a place we’ve heard a lot about but have never visited.

Murder Hole Beach is officially called Boyeeghter Bay or Boyeeghter Strand but known locally by the gruesome name. Two theories why include the death of a girl in the 1800s that fell to her death from the cliffs and the dangerous currents that make the bay unsuitable for swimming. It is known as the most beautiful beach in Donegal and possibly Ireland.

Accessing the beach used to require crossing private land and playing chicken with a bull but another landowner has now put in a gravel path and a car park. €5 gets you access to both for the day and it’s more than worth it.

Although the path is better it’s still a pretty strenuous climb going most of the way up and over Meelmore Hill before crossing farmland to the beach. Today as we climbed the hill we could hear the roar of a large helicopter and it turned out someone had got into difficulty either in the waves or on the rocks and had to be airlifted off by the coastguard.

Thankfully he walked out of the helicopter with only his dignity hurt.

Over the last little rise and we were treated to the most perfect of beach views.

I could see why it’s not suitable for swimming. The beach shelves off very quickly and although there was barely a breath of wind today there were quite large breakers and a series of much bigger waves every so often. An unwary swimmer could very easily get into trouble here!

These bay is also a geologist’s wet dream with visible rock strata and a cave. Unfortunately we couldn’t get in today due to the tide but that’s just another reason to come back.

© max molloy

On the way back we passed the ruin of an old house/farm building with a large bramble bush in blossom.

Also on the way back I realised that the path passed just below the summit of Meelmore Hill and I couldn’t resist the short scramble up to the top. It’s only approx 70m above sea level but the views were amazing.

For some reason the arcane system of classifying hills (something to do with prominence that I really don’t need to understand) means that this summit isn’t listed for logging on Mountainviews.ie but I’m still glad I went up to the top.

A quick stop on the way home for a 99 made the afternoon pretty much perfect 👌

happy new year!

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Last year I started the New Year on the top of Errigal with a hike to welcome the dawn on the summit. I had hoped to repeat that this year but my back has been playing up all week making it unlikely. Then to top it off there was a weather warning for high winds on Atlantic coasts and high ground. The predicted wind speed on the summit at dawn was 80-100km/hr so there was no way I was chancing that, especially in the dark.

After a lazy lie in we marked the New Year all together instead with a walk on Rathmullan Beach which is a regular spot for us and Catriona’s favourite. We ended up sitting in the car for almost half an hour as the rain hammered down before deciding to get some chips from the nearby van. Instead of going home afterwards as expected we were delighted to see the weather clear and the sun actually come out. We ended up with beautiful weather for a beach walk – a strong, bracing wind but no rain!

Afterwards we paid a brief visit to my Grand Aunt Ruby who had her 106th birthday yesterday! She had a busy day with some visitors and lots of phonecalls and was pretty tired from it all so we didn’t stay very long. She’s some lady.

Finally before heading home we called via Mum and Dad’s for a visit and to wish them a Happy New Year in person. This rounded off a very enjoyable, relaxing and family orientated start to 2022.

bád eddie

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One of Donegal’s most famous landmarks and probably the most photographed, lies on Magheraclogher Beach outside Bunbeg. It’s the remains of a boat (Bád Eddie is Irish for Eddie’s boat) that ran aground in the 1970s and has sat there for almost 50 years. We’ve never been there and as it’s in serious danger of collapsing completely, we made the journey today to see it for ourselves and get some photos of our own before it disappears for good.

july – a month of significant days

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July is a busy month for our family and it starts straight away with my Mum’s birthday on July 1st. Two weeks later on the 14th it’s the turn of Dad and myself. It’s a joint birthday but this year it’s all about Dad as he turned 70. We had a family get-together at a restaurant in Letterkenny and then back to Mum and Dad’s for a few hours.

Just before this my blog passed it’s second blogiversary. I’m now up to 236 followers and have a good core group of regular readers, many of whom like and comment on a regular basis. This week I also passed a pretty big milestone for a blog that I don’t promote beyond my personal Facebook page.

However, by far and away the most important date this year is today. 20 years ago I married my soulmate. As Catriona eloquently said on Facebook this morning “20 years of you, me and us” We’re a perfect example of a couple that are better people together than we ever would have been apart ❤️

we haven’t changed a bit!

We arranged to have our days off together today. Yesterday evening we went for a lovely meal in The Hidden Pearl, Sion Mills. Today we went back to Portstewart and had lunch in the Anchor Bar where we first met.

We had a lovely day driving and walking around a town that is full of memories for me, having lived there for a few years but with a very special memory that we both celebrated today.

Header image by Pixabay on Pexels.com

pollan strand, ballyliffin

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It’s Catriona’s birthday this week and as we’re all at work and school she wanted to celebrate today with a family day away, especially as we appear to have temporarily skipped straight from Spring to Summer.

On the way down we stopped at my brother’s coffee van (#curiouscoffee). I’ve stopped a couple of times already on my way to work but as they are only open 9 weeks now it was a first visit for Catriona and the boys.

Coincidentally Mum and my sister plus kids had a similar idea and we met them there and sat having a chat for a good while.

The main aim of the day was to go for a family walk. We had chosen Glenevin Waterfall outside Clonmany but the car park and trail were closed. According to Google it’s “temporarily closed” so it must be a victim of the lockdown restrictions.

Our next choice was always going to be a beach walk anyway so we headed for Pollan Strand less than 10 minutes away and walked pretty much the full length of the beach. It was 6km in glorious warm sunshine, as close to Summer as it gets in this part of the world.

On the way back we stopped at the Four Lanterns in Buncrana for burgers and chips topped off by 99s in Raphoe. An extravagant day of spoiling ourselves but a lovely family day out.

work stops play

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I expected it to be difficult to keep up the level of activity of the last few weeks when I went back to work but I had a plan for the week. I didn’t plan on multiple days of stormy wind and rain though.

Tuesday onwards has been pretty grim which had a big impact on my cycling. My plan was 60km each of my days off (Wednesday and Sunday) with 25km two mornings before work (Tuesday and Friday). Tuesday morning wasn’t happening as I really needed the extra hour in bed. Wednesday I did get out but the worst of the storm was to hit that afternoon into Thursday so I only managed a wet and windy 26km. It was still stormy Friday morning so the bike was out again. Today it’s Mother’s Day and #2 son’s 13th birthday so 2.5hrs on the bike was never going to happen. I had hoped for an hour in the morning but a walk was just about enjoyable, a cycle would have been hateful. A total of 26km for the week, how the mighty have fallen!

Walking has been more successful. I’ve managed to keep up my streak of walking every day. Even on the wettest days it’s not hard to dress up appropriately and make it at least partially enjoyable. My target for the week is 30km and finishing on 28.9 my only issue was skipping the 2km walk on Thursday morning. Heavy rain and hail showers was not my idea of a good way to start the day.

The biggest result of the week has been finally starting a strength and conditioning program. I’ve been following the Chain Reactions kettlebell routine from YouTube. Monday, Thursday, Saturday with a 2km warm up walk (skipped on Thursday). I’ve also added in some upper body movements to give a 25-30min routine. I was very stiff on Wednesday but OK since and hopefully it’s the start of a new habit.