Back to Boyle

I went to Boyle yesterday for the Bank of Ireland expo. On the way I managed to stop and take a photo of the waterfall that is along the N4. I’ve often wanted to stop but never had a chance before, I had the gorillapod so I put the camera on it to stop me jogging the camera.

After the waterfall I headed to the Ardcarne Garden Centre and the Garden Cafe. I was runner-up in a ‘Haiku’ (poem) competition on the Garden Cafe’s Facebook page and I won cake. So I had cake for breakfast…it was banana and caramel upside down cake and was just gorgeous! In my defense there was fruit in it so it’s healthy 😉

The cafe is a lovely place with friendly staff and a roaring fire…what more could you want.

After my lovely cake and three mugs of tea I went into the garden centre. I was delighted to see Snowball still in the midst of things. He’s the resident garden centre cat and is so friendly and a great model 🙂

The garden centre have beautiful plants, gifts, seeds, bulbs and all kinds of everything. I loved the orchids and the double primroses. Both the cafe and garden centre have various events taking place throughout the year so it’s well worth keeping an eye on their Facebook pages.

Now on to Boyle. It was a great idea to have the expo and show people what is on offer in Boyle. I didn’t get to the event on Friday which was about the businesses in the town and Dermot Bannon (Room to Improve) was there (I’d have liked to have met him). I had too much wine on Friday though so couldn’t drive anywhere…you can read why on Lucy’s blog.

Saturday’s expo was held in King House, Boyle, which is also home to the Farmer’s Market, which takes place every Saturday from 10am-2pm. There were several community groups there and Boyle certainly seems to be a great town as far as community spirit goes.

I’m not well up on sports but I gather the lads above (in the DCU tops)  were in the D.C.U Sigerson Cup team.

I loved the model railway that the Boyle Men’s Shed made. I really hope they get their new premises soon as it’s a brilliant project.

I also loved looking at the wonderful photos and slide show from the Boyle Camera Club. As I was looking at them one of the members came up to talk to me. It was Tony Murphy, I had to stop myself ‘fan girling’, he is an amazing photographer and what gobsmacked me was he knew who I was when I told him my name!! I’m always doubting myself so for a photographer of his calibre to have heard of me just made my day. I’m thinking about going along to the next camera club meeting, I’d love to learn more and am always looking for inspiration.

I also frightened the bejaysus out of myself in King House, especially in the cells down in the basement. I wasn’t too bad until I went to touch one of the cell doors and this voice started shouting ‘Let me out!’ It was, of course, a recording but I still legged it out of there as quickly as I could!

So that was my day in Boyle. The rest of my photos are here.