Summer's late arrival.

At last summer is here, the last few days have been warmer than the rest of the summer and today it made 21c, it felt positively hot.
Sunday was also a beautiful day, just right for the Harvest Festival and Annual Apple day at the Organic centre in Rossinver. It attracted a huge crowd, with workshops going on for most of the day. We were particularly interested in the apple pruning demonstration. Pruning has always been a weak point for me with the exception of blackcurrant pruning, I never prune my roses as much as I know I should, and larger fruit trees have largely remained a mystery to me, but now I've got it! and I now know how to identity a leaf bud from a flower bud. The apples will get pruned when winter arrives, the plums will be done next summer.

Juicing the apples.

I had hoped that there would be apples for sale but like most of the apple trees in this part of Ireland it has been a very  poor harvest, however the juicing apples were ready for the day, not only was there a demonstration of apple pressing we could buy fresh apple juice, it was beautiful, and very different from the stuff that you buy in shops.

Michaelmas Daisy with a resting Tortoiseshell butterfly. 

The flower gardens around the centre are now if full autumn colour,

but it was frustrating to see Watsonia happily growing away.

Shades of yellow.

I bought several plants of this when we first moved here but they failed to thrive. I assumed that we were just too cold or wet for them to grow. Well it is a lot colder and wetter in Co. Leitrim.

Watsonia at the coast.

To add insult to injury, on our trip to the coast on Monday we found that Watsonia was growing in abundance on the NW coast.
 There were quite a few stalls, selling all types of great Organic goodies.

Trevor, with a wonderful selection of cheeses as ever.

 An old customer of ours was also there selling a wonderful selection of cheeses, one in particular took our fancy, Castlebellingham blue cheese, it is very similar to my all time favourite cheese, Dorset Blue Vinny.

Mary from Bluebell Organic farm with her eggs, jams and pickles.

There were of course plants for sale, but I was good, I only bought two, but I made up for that on seeds for next years flowers.
It was a great day out and very well organised, and it was good to see so many people there.

Yet another ruined castle.

One the way back we had a quick look at the castle in Manorhamilton, we have past it many times but never had to time to have a look round. It is another short lived castle, built in 1634/38 by a Scott Frederick Hamilton, it was destroyed in 1652.

It would have been a beautiful place in it heyday.
Monday was another lovely summers day, so we combined taking Zara our Persian cat to the vet,( she needed dental work done under anaesthetic,) with a trip to the coast.

This trip in fact had been planned as I wanted wool and a good Aran pattern to knit a jumper for my O.H's Christmas present. It is hard to buy pure wool in this part of Ireland, or to even find a shop that sells patterns and knitting needles so a trip to 'The Crafters Basket' was called for. What a wonderful shop, everything from knitting and rug making to edible food dyes. I could have spent hours there, and a lot of money but we wanted to get seaweed for the garden and we knew the tide was right.
I got the pure Aran wool and pattern that I wanted.

Continuing down to the coast we got eight large sacks of seaweed,

Harbour slipway and the mountains of Sligo.

a nice lunch in Mullaghmore , and a very happy cat now that her teeth have been dealt with.

Tiger Flowers, you can eat the bulbs if you are so minded, I'd rather have the flowers.

I had a pleasant surprise from some of the plants that I bought from the local online nursery, on offer were Tiger flowers, reduced to 99 cents as they had already flowered this year, this warm weather has clearly confused them as they have now decided to bloom again.

 I had left them in their pots as they are not fully hardy, with the intention of moving them into the greenhouse for the winter, I'm glad I left them outside, another lovey splash of colour.

Kissing carrots. This is what happens if you don't thin them out enough.

 

Fishing boat at Mullaghmore.