quick post after breakfast

A great deal of time has passed (okay, two days) without blogging, and as so often happens, things have begun to recede into the mists.  I have, probably, only a few minutes, but I want to record as much as I can in that time before it all drifts away.

Monday:

• A rather hilly day of cycling.  I started out fairly fast, and alone; there were a lot of uphills and a long flat cycle through a valley and then an ascent to a gap.  I felt like a character in The Lord of the Rings, with the sun beating down on me in the broad green valley and cows and goats and sheep making noises at my bike. 
• At the top of the gap, I gathered with the other bikers in my group - it seems like we all tend to congregate at these sorts of locations, and like the biggest climb ends about a third of the way into the trip but takes the first half of the day.  There was then a descent, and then another long climb, and then the lunch location.  Everyone was feeling pretty draggy and defeated at that point, I think, and nobody stopped for lunch.
• The afternoon was a bit of a blur - I remember I spent most of the time biking with a couple who goes slower than I normally would, which encourages me to slow down and check out the scenery.  
• At the very end of the bike ride, there's the option to go past the town a couple miles and go to a beach.  That was really amazing - I have pictures of it but, as with all of my pictures, they totally fail to capture the awesomeness.  The beach was wide and cold, and people were walking along it in parkas.

Tuesday:

• A fairly flat cycle.  The views were amazing.  We kept stopping to look a the water, at ruins, at rocks, and to climb up things.  Unfortunately, between getting a fairly late start - we had to ride to Dingle first - and all this stopping, we didn't have time to do everything there was to do on the ride.  We saw views of the Blasket Islands, but didn't go to the Blasket Islands visitors center, which apparently has some very interesting exhibits.  There were also other museums and monuments and ruins that I would like to visit but that there just wasn't time for.  
• I've noticed that - for everyone, not just me - the primary impediment to enjoyment is an anxiety that sets in late in the afternoon, that there won't be time to get there, and that makes us hurry along, often needlessly, to get there.
• The day ended at a pub called Dingle Pub, with chowder and a sandwich and "Irish Country Western" music, which is a bit like Irish music and a bit like American country music.  They are big on the song Country Roads here, and when the musician played it, I had that feeling you can only have when you're very far from home, of being totally displaced from your own home, and totally at home in the broader world. 

Today is a rest day... I think I'm just going to take it easy and shop.