Quaint and charming… - WorldWideWaftage

Seagulls are prolific in this area.

“Fascinating Fact of the Day About Ireland”

“Ireland is known as the Emerald Isle because of its lush rolling hills and vales of green. Poet William Drennan is thought to be the first to use the phrase in print in his poem When Erin First Rose.”

This morning while checking on ingredients for tonight’s low carb taco salads we realized we didn’t have any green olives, a vital part of the taco salad for Tom. I don’t care one way or another about olives in my salad, but Tom would be sorely disappointed without them.

This cow stopped grazing to check us out.

We contemplated driving to Carna but ran the risk they wouldn’t have olives in either one of the two tiny superette-type markets. We decided to take a risk to drive the further distance to Roundstone which is almost as far as Clifden (40 minutes) or perhaps further.

Roundstone is a popular tourist town, and lo and behold, we found olives in the second of two small markets. Also, we were low on fuel and didn’t see a petrol station anywhere.

Ruins in the distance are covered with vegetation.

As we drove through the little town of Roundstone with a population of 214, per the census of 2016, I spotted two fuel pumps outside the post office, pointing this out to Tom.

He filled up the car and was told by the postmaster thattoo pay for the fuel to cross the street to go to the little market where I happened to be looking for olives.

A postman on a motorbike.

Alas, the shop owner showed me where the olives were kept in plastic deli containers in the refrigerated section. We paid for the fuel and three containers of olives and were on our way to take more photos of the quaint little town.

Now, bear with me. I, too, am tired of using the words “quaint” and “charming.”

when describing small towns in Ireland but, that is precisely what they are. When searching the definition of “quaint,” here is what I found:

The climate in Ireland results in moss growing on many of the rocks.

From dictionary.com:

Quaint

adjective, quaint·er, quaint·est.

having an old-fashioned attractiveness or charm; oddly picturesque: a quaint old house.
strange, peculiar, or unusual in an interesting, pleasing, or amusing way: a quaint sense of humor.
Skillfully or cleverly made.
Obsolete. Wise; skilled.

As you can see from the above, there aren’t many words in the English language as an alternative to quaint. Then again, there’s the word “charming” with this definition from the same dictionary.com.

Charming
adjective

pleasing; delightful: a charming child.
using charm; exercising magic power

When a village has 214 residents with historic buildings, houses, and shops, one may search for hours looking for better words to describe such an area, all to no avail. You get the picture. I feel compelled to use these two words as we wander through Connemara to check out one small town after another.

We hadn’t noticed the horse on the hill while taking the photo.

We took several photos and headed back to Glinsce. I wanted to start chopping and dicing vegetables for tonight’s meal and finally work on today’s post.

Soon, John, the fish guy, will be here. We’re hoping he’ll have crab claws today. We borrowed a nutcracker from the property owner, Eileen, and hope to put them to good use having crab claws as a fun and tasty happy hour appetizer.

Tomorrow, we’ll be back with photos from Roundstone.

Have a superb day!

Photo from one year ago today, July 9, 2018:

Such a handsome male lion. These lions shown today are not necessarily the lions recently spotted inside Marloth Park. For more photos, please click here.

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