We need groceries.. .and a usable frying pan… which both seem a bit ridiculous given that we fly back to the states in 5 days.. but there it is. Even though the forecast shows only two good days before rain begins… we plan one of them around finding a decent grocery store. (I am not going into the saga about how Brige (rymes with siege) the landlady, said we would find everything we need at the “supermarket” in Maum. I will say that a shoebox sized store that has gas out front, farm supplies at one end and a smattering of unpriced vegetables wedged between the hardware at the other end is something all right… just not what most Americans would call a supermarket.
So after buying 20eu worth of stuff at the Maum “supermarket” with little to show, we planned a day of monastic sites (and a test run of sorts to the route we will need early Sat. for Dublin) all based around the location of two possible real supermarkets. All day I thought we were seeing an Abbey a Friary and a Priory… but in reality we simply went to three different Friaries.. one of which was not planned.
Kilconnell, Claregalway, and Ross Errilly Friaries were all established in the 1350’s and although we spent a full day traveling too, walking through, peeing around, stumbling over and photographing them.. . they are so similar as to be quite confusing. I’ll just say that I was particularly happy to find little animals and people hidden in the stonework in two of them, and as always was thrilled to find stonework variations on arches and doorways. Highlight: Ross Errilly even had a miniature square archade… don’t even get me started on that! Love it.
A brand new grocery store, “Joyce’s” (and worthy of being called a supermarket) revealed itself to us in Headford on the way to the last Friary. Armed with fresh rotisserie chicken, a selection of gluten free products not available in the states, and vegetables enough to finish out our final week abroad we began our return to Castlekirk Cottage.
The kicker though, fancy new Joyce’s didn’t have a frying pan and it was too late for the Headford hardware store where we were told we should find pans…it was closed. We then hoped we might have luck for a pan at the Spar store in the next “sizeable” town, Cong. (where they filmed the wife beating movie “The Quiet Man”)
Lots of ducks….No pan.
Other than pub traffic, small town Ireland was closing down… but I knew where there were 2 frying pans available at this hour. I’d seen them. That’s right…the Maum “supermarket”. Wedged between the electrical supplies and cracker “aisles”…frying pans.
Need any dewormer with that?
Oh yeah… ANOTHER killer sunset!
Super cool!
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