Sally is the best! She left us with homemade bread, local brown eggs and fresh local full fat milk which was all so thoughtful. If needed she is right there able to be reached. She left us with good strong coffee and good strong tea. I should mention that we were able to walk up the hill past the village up to an truly amazing community maintained forest (good sized with lots of trails) called Ballyford. It's not even two kilometers away and is a lovely walk. If you're lucky, you might run into Oliver working away for free at Ballyford forest, he is a force of nature who is hell-bent on people having a nice place to walk ("to walk in nature is to witness a thousand miracles") and when we found him he was rebuilding a low stone wall which I think he had built himself, all for the public, which some kids had torn asunder for no good reason at all, and he was digging a new post hole to straighten up a trail marker post. You can see evidence of real community pride in the flower boxes on the road bridge, for instance, people really care here and it was very touching to see.
We were staying so we could be nearby to a course we were taking in Gorey, and we had slightly different sleep schedules, but the way the ground floor is designed, two people on different sleep schedules can co-exist easily, each with their own privacy sharing only a kitchen and front door. This was hugely appreciated! I took the master bedroom, and my colleague took the smaller one that has black-out options in the little windows (I had an eye pillow), and she had the sitting room all to herself which we could visit in, but mostly we would just have herbal tea at the little table in the kitchen, at night before bed, in front of a lovely, gorgeous, deep window. Sally's place is an utter haven for nature lovers. Birds, flowers, the hum of honey bees and the beautiful pastures at the back. The place was just charming, I didn't ask my colleague much but she said she was comfortable, my bed was clean and comfortable. The decor was like stepping into another time with beautiful antique cabinets and a very cool divan in the master bedroom that I loved to look at. The place seemed almost Yeatsian. :) Great place to practice yoga at the foot of the bed, with the morning sun streaming in through sliding glass doors.
There was a lovely red treetop visible over the garden shed roof that moved so beautifully in the late spring wind. It's just a very inspiring space. A lot of light comes through on both sides of the house, and the smaller windows on the front of the house in the bedrooms are like little paintings of green leaves as there are lovely plants growing out front. The gardens were incredible, they seemed to be never ending, just goes down and down and out and there are little nooks to explore everywhere and quite a fascinating variety of plants and trees, we're honestly not sure we even found everything there is to find there although we tried. You could hear Sally's mom (the lady who made the gardens) moving around upstairs on occasion, but generally it was intensely quiet, and we couldn't hear anything at all, just the peace and quiet of a charming house at the head of a massive sprawling garden. You really feel connected to the rhythm of nature here. Certainly couldn't hear my colleague as our sleeping quarters were divided by a kitchen and a foyer. Wish I could live there! A really nice change of pace from Dublin life, even though I live by a park, and the sea. Loved it, will definitely be back.