I love travel. Isn’t it great? It doesn’t matter where you go, even if it’s just down to the shop and back, you feel like you’ve accomplished something every time. Walked for ten minutes and bought some milk? Well, it’s better then sitting in front of the television, isn’t it?
A few weeks ago I went to Northern Ireland, which is (you guessed it) in the north of Ireland. Really it’s a beautiful place. It’s like normal Ireland, but more mountainous, grassy and remote. I went to a lovely place called Ballycastle, where my aunt and uncle live.
They live about ten or fifteen minutes from the town because they own a farm. I spent a lot of time when I was up there on the farm because it was Easter and Easter means … lambs! I think I might make an effort to go up there every year because I just love helping out so much. You know, you’d think it would be really easy looking after a lamb, but it’s actually quite complicated and technical.
Basically if a lamb doesn’t get milk from its mother (or enough) in 24 hours then it won’t get enough E. coli, and this means it could get diseases such as watery mouth. To prevent this you have to feed the lambs E. coli powder to help it develop, but this is never as good as the real stuff. Just a few nuggets of information to enjoy if you’re ever thinking of having sheep!
So my days in Ballycastle were mainly full of feeding lambs out of sucky bottles and transporting them into new pens, gardening and visiting garden centres all wile surrounded by the beautiful Northern Irish countryside.
The garden centre I visited was called Greenlight Garden Centre and it’s lovely. It mainly has plants for small and sunny gardens but it has a few big ones two, garden accessories and equipment. It has garden furniture two and the MOST AMAZING gift shop EVER. I mean seriously, that thing goes on for ages and has literally everything you could ever think of: teddies, books, candles (woohoo!), kitchen stuff, food (amazing) and tons of things I can’t ever remember. Brain. Overload.
And don’t get me started on the restaurant. Paradise. They had a booth where you got all your cutlery and napkins and stuff but the also had a little water dispenser with a weaved basket of lemon slices in it. Don’t ask me why, but I just loved that.
The food was a little overpriced, but sooooo gooooood. I got a toasted panini and a side of salads which had coleslaw with red cabbage, peppers and chickpeas. I honestly couldn’t finish it. And we got a caramel slice to bring home which was perfect. The only bad thing I could say about it was the tea wasn’t nice at all. I’m guessing it was Lyons. Sorry guys, but I’m a Barry’s Girl for life.
Ever since going I’ve gotten really into gardening, which is something I thought would never happen! It’s actually really fun to decide where everything’s going to go and match the colours. If you haven’t tried it, then you should give it a go.
Until next time,
Moo.