On The Tourist Trail at Easter

The Easter School Holidays and Bank Holiday arrived, for a busy family that meant four days of day trips and touring around doing as much as possible together as we could.

Daily picnics, cycling, walking, sightseeing, two days of National Trust properties and Easter Egg Trails ensued, across Counties Antrim, Down and Londonderry.

One of the spots we recently visited was the Springhill Estate in County Londonderry which has an interesting costume museum and a good ghost story. One particular bedroom is believed to be haunted by a previous lady of the house. The story as we heard it is that the woman's husband was considered to have committed suicide in the bedroom. A later visitor to the house reported a noise from behind the bed and an apparition in the room. Many years later the bed moved was moved to a different spot and the room stripped for redecoration. A secret door was discovered. The door led to a staircase and at the bottom of the staircase a sachet of gunpowder and a pair of gloves with the initials of the lady of the house. Is our ghost mourning the death of her husband or visiting the spot of a more sinister event she was involved in? I will leave that to your sleuthing skills and imagine. It is a genteel house, not as grand as the large mansion houses but has a homely feel to it whilst imitating some features of the larger estates. You can read more about it on the National Trust website and I found this blog post about the ghost stories.

We also enjoyed a visit along the Antrim Coast, which will be appearing in the new novel I am working on (Thread of Life) and across the Glens to Coleraine.

A few pictures from our travels, including the Dark Hedges which took quite a few detours through the village of Stranocum to find, but was appreciated by the avid Game of Thrones members of the family.

We also visited Castle Ward and Tullymore Forest over the Easter break, two other sites used to film Game of Thrones. For anyone interested in the locations which have been used for the series you may like this link from Discover NI.

Springhill Estate

Tullymore

Shimna River, Tullymore

Mount Stewart

Mount Stewart

Dark Hedges (or King's Road)

Coleraine from Mountsandel

Castlewellan Forest Park

Castlewellan Forest

An Odd Time

I always find November an odd month and, as it's just round the corner, I'm in that place again. The summer months are gone, as a busy mum I'm settled back into the routine of the children at school, the homework and all the clubs and sports they attend during term time.

As we've seen through the havoc caused by Sandy on the US East Coast, the weather has slipped into wet, cold, windy months. We're being warned of gale force winds and heavy rain to hit us tonight, though it's put into perspective by the scale of Sandy and the destruction she's causing.

Thoughts have started to turn to Christmas but the excitement isn't there for it yet. For parents it's that stage where the children are starting to think about lists and you're worrying about how to keep them at a manageable level. It will be weeks before the lights and decorations go up and the house starts to feel festive. I enjoy Christmas, especially the excitement the children feel in the build up to it. This year we are having family from England coming to stay with us, bringing two more young children with them so I have a bit more planning to do but we are looking forward to spending the holiday with them and their visit adds to our enthusiasm. Until then we have November. A month when we feel the effect of the clocks turning back, with long nights and colder weather, a month of expenditure and planning for parents and I end up looking back to summer or forward to Christmas.

If we had an American-style Thanksgiving Holiday to look forward to in November would it lift this in-between month or would it just be another burden to plan for?

So, here's a post that looks back to a day at Murlough Beach in Dundrum, before I gather the energy to start the work towards Christmas and my next goal of editing The Glass House in the hope of seeking an agent for it in the new year.

The dogs in these pictures are mine and this post gives me an opportunity to promote the rescue of abandoned and unwanted pets. Both our dogs came from rescue situations. Our lab/staffy cross ended up in a pound after being found as a stray with no microchip or ID and when we first decided to get a dog that's where we found him. Our Irish Red Setter was adopted from Donegal Pet Rescue after she was surrendered by her previous owners. Even this posts links to my writing, as it was during the journey to collect Molly (the red setter) that I drove through Sion Mills and became intrigued with the village and its architecture, in turn choosing it as the setting for The Glass House.

For more on Sion Mills: http://www.sionmills.org/

Murlough Beach in Dundrum is at the foot of the Mourne Mountains and, due to its dunes, this beach is maintained by the National Trust.
http://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/murlough/

A Thank You

I'm overdue adding this post. I was thrilled to discover that National Trust Mount Stewart shared my blog post about Mount Stewart on google+. So, thank you to them.

This is their google page, containing lots of other posts with information on the estate and some beautiful photographs:
https://plus.google.com/u/0/107831660336607839127/posts

Crom Walled Garden

I'm in the midst of a new manuscript, The Glass House. The main character, Caitlin, has inherited her grand-parents property, near the village of Sion Mills, and their love of gardening. On clearing a wild corner of the walled garden, on the property, she discovers a door that leads to a dilipadated Victorian Glass House. With the help of local handy-man, Jack, she restores it so that it becomes the centre of her burgeoning horticultural business. The Glass House contains other themes that run through the story.

I had already drafted the second chapter, in which Caitlin's glass house is first described but I was thrilled when I discovered the walled garden and derelict glass house at Crom Castle. I'm grateful to the staff member who told me about it. This glass house, like Caitlin's, is in a very sorry state. It doesn't exactly match my vision or description but does show the remains of pipes, brick walls and benches. It's a ghost of the beautiful and functional building it must once have been. The National Trust staff also told me when they cleared some of the wall and area round the glass house last year, they revealed marks along the wall. These show where other houses and structures once stood. In the barn building that the Trust use at Crom, there is an information centre. Within it they have an excellent plan of the walled garden from early in the 1900's, which includes the walled, circular rhododendron pool at the centre of it. Today only one corner of the garden is in use as allotments.

National Trust: Crom
Discover NI: Crom
http://lordbelmontinnorthernireland.blogspot.co.uk/2008/08/enchanting-walled-garden-of-crom.html

Crom Estate, Co. Fermanagh

The Crom Estate sits on the edge of Upper Lough Erne in Co Fermanagh and contains not one but two castles (albeit one is in ruins, but no less spectacular). You can hire a boat at the National Trust site or, like my family and I, you can take your bike and enjoy the trails. It's a beautiful estate and well worth a visit.

One highlight of the day, for me, was discovering the walled garden and the dilapidated glass house within it, not only as someone who would love to be a great gardener but also because it conformed so well to my vision of Caitlin's walled garden and glass house in my work in progress, The Glass House. As there are so many photos to post of the estate itself, I'll reserve the ones of the garden and glass house for another day.

Crom Old Castle

Current Crom Castle (privately owned)

The Boathouse

Bridge to the island (where the walled garden is) and the Summer House

View from the Summer House 

National Trust: Crom
Discover NI: Crom
http://cromcastle.com/index.html