01 October 2012

Weekend in Donegal

Not this weekend just been but the weekend before I managed to escape the city for a couple of days and headed up to Donegal with some friends, where we had a cottage rented for the weekend - a quaint stone cottage with a huge yard, good heating and an open fire.


Why am I writing about it only now? Because I'm lazy, and busy, and it seemed like a lot of effort. Which it isn't because I'm mostly going to post photos and not so many words anyway. The weekend away was great - the weather was clear and frosty and we were pretty much completely secluded in the countryside, in a nice warm house with a view of the bay. I think the most noticeable thing about the whole weekend was how amazing the fresh air smelt - there is clearly not enough of it here in Galway for me to notice it so much. It felt like being back home again, like wintery days spent in Colac Bay or Riverton or Pukemaori. And it definitely increased my desire to be done with this awful PhD and to find a job and somewhere to live that is not in a dreary city like this one. Somewhere with a view, like this, in the morning:


And like this in the evening:



There was also a beach real close-by, a surfing beach with lots of sand and rocks that reminded me of Colac Bay. We put on wet-suits and went for a swim (see what I wuss I have become, can't even go for a swim in the sea anymore).


And then when we drove away from the beach the sun came out and suddenly everything was all blue and green and I guess pictures like this are why people try to say that Ireland is like New Zealand:



I still maintain that it is really not anything the same, but maybe if instead of living in Galway I had spent these three years elsewhere I would have a slightly different opinion. Finally, to add that last touch to a weekend in the countryside, we had a dog with us. This is Bella and she is adorable, and behaves like a big baby:


So this weekend away in Donegal was a birthday celebration for three friends so naturally it included a treasure hunt and a birthday party with an amazing cake. I spent most of the weekend reading, as I do, and sitting by the nice warm fire. It was so hard to come back to Galway. It is the 1st of October today and I have given myself a deadline to hand in my thesis - sometime in December, before Christmas. That's only 10 weeks away. Two and a half months. I'm not sure if it can actually be done. But I hope it can.

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