2 days off

Day 10 (20 April)

I get two days off. I take the ferry to Ballycastle and have a long walk up to Ballycastle Forest. Many birds singing on my way, and lots of spring flowers!

I turn round after about 1,5 hrs because I still have shopping to do. Beautiful views towards Rathlin from the hill, with a lovely blue sea around it.

The Spar is close to the harbour and has most of the things I want. I’m like a child in a cakeshop after that long period on the island making do with the available provisions and fill three shopping bags!

The off-license turns out to be in the city cente, so I leave the bags at the Spar and walk up there. I get some beer and a bottle of Tullamore Dew (obviously, I would have taken Bushmills if it had been available, but it’s sold out!)

Alison texts to tell me she will pick me up at the harbour which is splendid, as the shopping is far too much to take up the steep track on my bike.

But first, time for a cup of tea and a little something in the Promenade cafe close to the harbour. And there is free wifi, so I send off the blog for days 8&9.

Then off to the harbour. I meet some RSPB women who have been to Rathlin for the day, to talk about membership strategies and see how the Rathlin West Light Seabird Centre is doing. They have had a wonderful day and are particularly happy about having seen the Great Skua! I talk to Wendy in the evening about that, and she tells me she has pointed it out to them and is very happy that they were so impressed by it. These are the little achievements we get very happy about: making the visitors happy about birdwatching.

It was nice to be of to the mainland for a day, but it’s even nicer to get back home on the island. The island definitely feels like a warm pleasant welcome. It’s very busy on the quay, people meeting, arriving, leaving and going about their business. Alison is in her car waiting for me, she has picked up supplies. There is luckily still room enough to get the bike and the groceries into the car. When we drive off, we see a group of seals in the harbour just at the quayside!

Back at the cottage I cook a quick dinner because Penny has offered us all a lift down to the pub. There will be music there tonight and we are looking forward to a nice evening out. Penny goes for dinner with her sister & sister’s partner. Wendy, Matt and myself sit down and enjoy running through each other’s pictures, talk about the day, our families, what we do in life etc. Matt is wondering how he can get down to the puffins to take close-ups of them. The puffins are about 50 metres below the lower lighthouse platform. He wants to explore several exciting options which include swimming, boats, ladders and ropes. We are well into our second pints when the musical instruments start to appear. The music is wonderful. As people do in the British Isles, they sit in a circle and take turns in taking the lead on songs or instrumental pieces. There are guitars, a banjo, flutes, a whistle, a fiddle, a bodhran (pronounced borran, a kind of traditional drum played with a two-ended stick). Some wonderful singing voices too.

Penny, her sister Heather and Heather’s partner Andrew meanwhile have joined us and we have some merry chats and listen to the music, which is wonderful. We stay on until past midnight, which is quite late considering we have generally gone to bed around 21.30. Penny is still capable of driving, fortunately, so we do not have to walk the 3 miles up the hill to our cottage. Luckily, there are no other people nor sheep, cattle or hares on the road. The rest of us are in various stages in inebriation and laughing a lot.

At the cottage it is very dark, no stars.

Day 11 (21 April)

Wake up at six, so that was quite a short night. I decide to do some karate practice outside to wake myself up and compensate for the boozy night. Kata O-Naihanshi, Kata Tensho, and some sparring combinations and kick combinations. There is a strong wind so it is quite cold, but the exercise warms me up quite soon.

I spend part of the morning catching up on my blog, and then cycle out to the south part of the island. I have my brakes seen to by John who has a workshop and rents out bicycles. My folding bike was not actually made for the rough hilly countryside, so everything gets shaken up a bit. After that, I go on to Roonivoolin, a site owned by the RSPB. There is a track running out and along the high cliffs, which makes this a very exhilarating walk on a windy day as it is today. I see a peregrine, hooded crows, black-backed gulls, some gannets and some eiders at sea. And I find a pellet, maybe from a buzzard. Most of it consists of grey hair, and some tiny bones can be discerned.

When I get to the end of the track and back on the road, near the Rue Lighthouse, it starts to rain. Luckily, I have taken my raintrousers with me. I get back to the harbour and into the Watershed Cafe, where I have tea and another of those nice roasted vegetable & goat’s cheese sandwiches, and set up office to do some work (messages, banks, phone calls).

In the late afternoon, I walk/cycle back to the cottage, looking at birds on the way. Quite a few wheatears (NL: tapuit), goldfinches (NL: putter), willow warblers (NL: fitis), wrens (NL: winterkoning), robins (NL: roodborst), blackbirds (NL: merel), songthrushes (NL: zanglijster), buzzards (NL: buizerd). I see a pair of teal (NL: wintertaling) on one of the little wetlands, that hurriedly fly off as soon as they see me.

Back at the cottage, I hear that there is a plan to help move Alison’s donkeys from the field above the church to another grazing spot in the centre of the island. So we all get in to Alison’s car down to the donkeys. There, the donkeys are harnessed up and we each get to walk a donkey along the road to the other field. It’s like walking a dog, requires slightly more patience as the donkeys want to graze along the way. ‘My’ donkey is called Eeyore, but he prefers brambles to thistles (and there are a lot of brambles on the way). He also likes gorse, plantain, as well as ordinary grass. It turns out to be a lengthy process and it gets quite late. Liam comes to meet us in his 4x4 and takes Alison back to collect her car, so we don’t need to walk all the way back there again. It’s a very interesting and also calming experience. On the way, Hazel and I watch some birds collecting nesting material, we are not sure about what they are: either twite (NL: frater) or linnet (kneu)? Later, we agree they were twites. These do not have the chracteristic yellow bill (carduelis flavorostris for the keen latinists) in summer plumage.

Then we get back to the cottage to cook and eat.