I love long bank holiday weekends. Who doesn’t?! And I particularly love the first long weekend of the year in March. The weather is starting to warm up, spring is in the air, and everything is waking up. My thoughts at this time of year turn to the anticipation of the summer ahead; longer evenings, trees and flowers blooming, and long lazy weekend meals outside. This weekend for me is a ‘New Year’s’ for the soul. And all my soul needed for the next few days was family, good food, and maybe a glass or two of wine!
On this surprisingly warm and sunny bank holiday weekend we decided to bring the boys to Sea Lodge, my parent’s house in Wexford, and spend the weekend with grandparents. Grandparents and kids are a great mix!
We recently had weeks and weeks of stormy weather in Dublin, a constant battering of wind and rain, and now what we all needed was for the bad weather to give us a break and remind us that summer was on its way, which thank you mother nature it did. After filling up the car, we were off! As soon as concrete turns to countryside I start to unwind, and with a quick stop off in ‘The Tap’ www.thetap.ie for coffee and pancakes (sounds very American doesn’t it!) we arrived in less than two hours. I already felt like I was on holiday.
There’s a book I love called ‘A Year in Provence’ by Peter Mayle, of course a fracophile like me would love that book! The opening line starts “The year began with lunch”… It was how our weekend began… When we arrived at Sea Lodge lunch was waiting for us al fresco. A lovely display of crusty bread, cheeses, cold meats, hard boiled eggs and salad. We washed it all down with a nice bottle of Rosé. With the warm sun on our faces, in a very Irish country cottage in the heart of Wexford, it felt, dare I say it, very French! And for the rest of the weekend we followed that theme, we ate delicious food and relaxed even more. The boys had the time of their lives. Ross and Callum (who hadn’t been in a while) expored every inch of the garden, making bows and arrows in the process, and ran practically non-stop for two days. Alex occupied himself by trying to crawl. David, my husband, told me that Callum, who’s nearly two, had the best two days of his whole life that weekend. How could he not? He was ‘outside’ his favourite place to be, he was with Gaga and Gigi, and he was discovering new things all the time - a little bird landing on the bird feeder, a broken tree that had been blown over by the recent storms (he wanted to pick the ‘big stick’ up!), muck, ladybirds, plants, stones, so much to do when you’re 22 months old. Adventures on the beach would have to wait until next time.
After our drive back home to Dublin, (all good things must come to an end I suppose) I prepared a ‘holiday’ lunch to remind us all of what a lovely, recharging few days we’d just had. It’s nice to reminise over lunch! And so with that, our holiday finally came to an end, back to more mundane things like filling dishwashers and washing uniforms for school!
We’ll see you soon Sea Lodge.
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