Sometimes the best trips are to what some might think of as nowhere. No famous buildings, no historic spots, no famous former denizens or kings. And that's what today's piece is about: a kilometer or so of walking down a country lane in Ireland.
Of course, it's not really nowhere: No place is nowhere to those who live there, even if they don't think much about it. It is a piece of ordinary experience, the plain stuff of life that makes the unusual so extraordinary by comparison. In that sense, where we are is everywhere, somewhere and nowhere all in one.
And, Professor Abe, George G and Lisa Sheets all sorted where it was!
We came to the lane by a string of circumstances. As we often do, we had scheduled a food walking tour in Dublin early in our trip; one of the stops was at a Dublin outlet for a country cheesemaker, Sheridan's. The shop had a poster advertising a Farm Food Fair near their headquarters, an hour or so from Dublin. And we had a free Sunday.
And that's how we happened to be dropped off at a bus stop officially labeled "White Gate Cross (opp Filling Station)," which was right at the head of the lane. That's an Irish Setter on the bus, by the way, not a greyhound! Our first stop, of course, was to have a look at the shop and use its facilities and top up a water bottle.
It's the only shop for quite a ways around, and meets many needs, including what I'd never seen before: bricks of peat to burn for heat. We later passed a cottage where they were being burned; I now know what it's like and could not imagine living in a small room full of its not-unpleasant but thick aroma.
Occasionally, also, signs of a wealthier lifestyle along the road, but not many.
And a spectacular mushroom, not known to us.
More cows and open fields...and a dense bank of white flowers.
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