Sunday, August 06, 2006
Doing Nothing in Sligo
The weekend of July 30th was entirely uneventful, both as far as activities go and from a
culinary point of view. In fact, it was so uneventful, it was great. A friend of ours was going surfing in Enniscrone, a small coastal town in county Sligo and had invited us to go with her. And being as Lofty and I have been in Ireland for more than a year now and have still not managed to get out of Dublin yet, we were more than happy to accept.We skipped the surfing and instead opted
for long walks on the wide, sand swept beaches of the west coast, collecting seashells and exploring the local wildlife. Unfortunately, there wasn't really all that much to explore and find: Some sea urchin skeletons (sadly, we found no live ones), mussel shells, 
lots of sea weed, surprisingly little rubbish (it probably all got blown into the sea), clam shells in every colour under the rainbow and crabs, lots of crabs. Most (including one that was nearly 30cm in diameter) had died a long time ago leaving behind only shells and legs, but two of them were actually still alive. One must have been attacked, for he was missing all his legs, the other one was perfec
tly happy and healthy, though. He was too small for eating, so we just had a good look and then took him down to the water line to prevent him from drying out in the gale force winds.Oh, and lest I forget, there was also that old Irish favourite - a shoe. If the litter in public places
is anything to go by, half this country's economic boom is fuelled by people's excessive loss and resulting consumption of shoes. They are everywhere, in the streets, on the pavements, in parking lots, in the shops... and on the beach. Lofty suggested we check if there was a leg attached to it, but the woman with us got so hysterical we abandoned the idea and left the mystery for someone else to solve.And what did we do apart from nothing? Not a lot. I read through the latest issue of Food & Wine magazine and we had some nice Chinese food at a nearby restaurant, but apart from that we just walked and chilled - which was just what I needed.
Christine at 9:48 pm
