Results matching “Christmas”

The bloke and I recently had an evening out to see the play "Sunny Afternoon", which was about the 1960s band the Kinks. Before the play, we enjoyed hot winter cocktails at the Hyatt Regency Churchillian above Oxford Street. The Churchill Bar at the hotel is transformed into Narnia from 'The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe' with Narnia and winter-themed cocktails for the coming weeks. The cocktails were developed in conjunction with chocolatier Green & Blacks.

I reserved a table and was placed in the bar, but I was expecting to be placed outside on the terrace with the furry throws and hot water bottles (see the below photograph that I managed to snap from outside the building).

However, we were placed in the hotel near the warm fire, which was not exactly the atmosphere that I was looking for to have the warm winter cocktails. Nonetheless, we were seated and we flipped through the drinks menu to choose from the list of Narnia-themed cocktails. The menu also featured various quoatations from Churchill and little drawings of cats and dogs. We were provided with olives and breadsticks.

Some of the alcoholic drinks in the selection on offer contained small snacks, such as Turkish delight. Churchill would call these small snacks that accompanied alcohol "num nums".

Drinks on the winter cocktail menu were called Aslan's Roar, Always Winter/Never Christmas, Beaver's Brew, the Toffee Tree, Edmund's Temptation, and the White Witch. Each cocktail is made with a different flavour of Green & Black's chocolate from lemon to dark to toffee to white.

I had The Toffee Tree cocktail, which featured the toffee that character Polly Plummer left behind that grew into a tree. The drink came with a silver apple and small piece of fudge, which was delicious. The cocktail's glass rim was covered with green salt, and the treats and cocktail were served up on a wooden board that had an outline of the shape of a tree. Toffee chocolate, Somerset Cider Brandy, rice milk, and Antica Formula were used for the cocktail.

The bloke ordered The White Witch cocktail, and it was made with Woodford Reserve Bourbon, milk, double cream, brown sugar, chili, ginger, and white chocolate. This was topped with foam and chocolate swirl.

After we finished our cocktails, we walked down through Mayfair (and caught a good glimpse of Christmas lights) to get to Harold Pinter theatre not far from Trafalgar Square. The Kinks' "Sunny Afternoon" was good fun. I won't spoil it, but the play is a musical and based on the life of the band the Kinks, featuring primarily on Ray Davies. The songs from the band were used to demonstrate key events in the band's history.

We had a table seat at the front and off to the left side of the stage, and we used an app to order a snack box for the intermission. We thought that the play was quite good, but the seats were not the most comfortable. A couple of songs were played in full at the end. I love a lot of songs by the Kinks as they have always been one of the bands I most admire from the 1960s, but I would say that "Waterloo Sunset" is probably my favourite of theirs. The play received an Olivier Award for 'best new musical' earlier this year. It is currently booking until April 2016.

This year, Covent Garden market in London have new Christmas lights. They have replaced the red orbs/ornaments (giant 'baubles' to my UK readers or 'bulbs' to my USA readers) that have been in use for the past few years and put up beautiful white orbs that look like mistletoe and mistletoe berries. I prefer these lights to their last ones, and the lights are already popular with visitors and social media. Giant silver orbs complete the Christmas theme.

In addition to the main halls of the covered markets covered in mistletoe, the exterior of the market hall has been covered with more Christmas decorations this year in the form of mistletoe. More photographs of the lights and decorations are below.

The interior walkways of the covered market retain the imitation pine branches and white- blue twinkling lights. This remains the same as it has been over the past few years.

Window-shopping at Covent Garden during the holidays reveals beautiful decorations, winter clothes, and other gifts in the windows.

Covent Garden also has its very own Christmas tree, wrapped in a large red bow. The gift tag on the Christmas tree is different this year.

The metallic reindeer has also returned to Covent Garden this year. Of course, there's also the Lego sculpture that makes an appearance every Christmas. This year is Santa's Express steam train and you can read more about it here.

Real reindeer also make their way to Covent Garden each year to entertain smaller guests, and they can usually be seen on the weekends. Viewing Covent Garden in the daylight is preferable to waiting until late in order to see what it has to offer, and it does not need to be dark in order to see the decorations on display inside the covered market hall. In addition, there's plenty of shops and restaurants or cafes in this area to make the most of your visit.

Each year for the past few years, Lego have created sculptures made out of its famous plastic bricks for the holidays and have placed the sculptures at Covent Garden. Last year's Lego sculpture featured Santa and his reindeer in a sleigh. Visitors could sit inside the sleigh and have their photographs taken and were encouraged to use social media to upload them.

This year's Lego sculpture is similar and also encourages visitors to get their photographs to upload to social media. The sculpture features a train pulling a Christmas tree and other various gifts. Visitors can sit in the front of the train and upload their photographs using #LEGOSantaExpress. This year's sculpture took three months and 500,000 plastic bricks to build.

Previous years of Christmas-themed sculptures built using Lego in Covent Garden included a large snowglobe filled with London monuments made from Lego that visitors could walk through and a large Lego advent calendar which was opened daily to reveal a new surprise.  

The Lego Santa Express is on display in Covent Garden until 29 December, so check it out while you can.

Halloween had not arrived before most shops have put out their Christmas items, and I felt that it was too early to post about Christmas until November. I went to Lush at the beginning of October and had a wander around to see what was on offer in the Christmas products this year. To see Lush's Christmas offerings from last year, view my post here. I saw that some items from last year have returned, and there's a few new items. Overall, there seems to be more items on offer this year. I didn't buy anything this year because I don't have access to a bath in the new house and this has to wait until I can afford to get some work done to install one.

Above is the Peeping Santa Bubble Bar and Lord of Misrule shower gel. Okay, Lord of Misrule is actually from their Halloween range, but the bright green colour looks Christmasy next to the bubble bar. 

The purple Bah Humbug Bubble Bar and Yog Nog bath bomb are also on offer. The Golden Wonder bath bomb (shaped like a golden gift) includes two bath bombs inside it, which changes colour in the bath. 

The Experimenter is the multi-faceted bath bomb on the right, and it was inspired by films. Above is a pink flamingo bubble bar stick, and the last item is the Butter Bear bath bomb. Butter bear was a favourite last year with a lot of people. 

One of my favourites from last year was the Holly Golightly bubble bar, which is silver with holly leaves. In addition, the peppermint-smelling Candy Mountain bubble bar can be purchased. The 'So White' bath bomb in the background has appeared for the past few years and smells like crisp apple to me and is one of my favourites.

A new bath bomb for the season is known as 'Frozen', and the colours remind me of the animated film of the same name and the dress that one of the main characters wears. Next to it is the Halloween offering, the Sparkly Pumpkin bubble bar, which I did try last year.

The Father Christmas bath bomb is back as well as Luxury Lush Pud, which is the multi-coloured bath bomb at the front. One of my favourites is the melting angel bath bomb, which appeared last year and is back this year. Star Dust is another bath bomb, on the other side, and this is new for this year. 

The Magic of Christmas is a stirrable bubble-bar which contains spices and an extra bit of sparkle. I wish that I could try this as it's a new one this year.

Another new offering this year is the gold shimmery 'Five Gold Rings', which are bubble bars on strings.

This year, the new Christmas soap is known as 'Old Father Time' and looks like a clock. The inside of the soap is colourful. 

Two soaps from last year also returned. Reindeer Rock soap returned, but it was designed a little differently this year. Yog Nog also returned. Fret not if you're also a fan of Snow Cake or Baked Alaska. These are my favourites, and I use Snow Cake all year around as I love the scent. These soaps were also for sale.

In addition, the peppermint-smelling soap pictured as the pink and green soap above (May Pole) could also pass as a Christmas product.

In addition to these products, there were also some Christmas jelly soaps that I did not get to photograph. I am really looking forward to getting a new bathroom and bath in place so I can start to enjoy using bath products again.

On Friday evening, the bloke and I went to see the Race of Champions in London at the Olympic Stadium. This is the first time we have been inside the Olympic Stadium, although memories were made when we had a visit to the Olympic Park during the Olympic games in 2012. This visit to the Olympic Park was very different. During the Olympic games, we were blessed with warm, summery weather. This visit, we had to wrap up warm, and even though I wrapped up warmly, I was still freezing.

The evening started with some warm-up laps and children's competitions.

I bought some macaroons in Westfield Stratford before the race, so we had these to munch on. 

Next up was the obstacles that celebrities had to do for entertainment.

Then, the cars with their countries and drivers came out to do a parade lap.

On the half-time, we watched motorcycles doing stunts.

After the semi-final, one of the drivers drove around and waved at the crowd.

The moon was also quite bright, and I could see some of the craters on it. This made me think of the 'Man on the Moon' John Lewis Christmas advertisement that is out this year.

We also saw a Formula1 car come out and do a few laps.

The United Kingdom team and the Germany team were in the final.

In the end, it was won by the United Kingdom team. I got a photograph of the interviews at the end of the race.

After the race, the action was not over yet as BBC's 'Top Gear' decided to put on a race for their upcoming series. The show is now hosted by Chris Evans, and he gave commentary and interviewed the drivers.

I hope you've enjoyed the photographs.

I took out an annual subscription of beauty and skin-care subscription box 'Love Me Beauty'. When I took out the subscription, the product allowed you to select one of four pre-made beauty boxes. However, on my third month, they changed the format so that you could select your items. I preferred the old format, and I received more items than being able to select all items that I wanted. I also found several months to be lacking to find items that I really wanted to try as all of the items were the same (mainly all lip stick or mainly all nail polish). I was not happy with the subscription service, so I made sure that my subscription did not renew after the year. If I would have known that they were going to bring in these changes when I signed up, I would not have signed up for an annual subscription.

Reviews of the products that I tried are below and I hope that this will help you determine the selection of products available each month.

June

I felt that this month were a little more on track with the different types of products that I could pick up, but I have tried a lot of the products before. 

Green People Gentle Cleanse & Makeup Remover: This product promises to cleanse and remove make-up, and it is an organic product for those who are conscious about too many chemicals. The product did the trick for me.

Lord & Berry Velluto Liner 'Steel Grey': This is a dark grey eyeliner, and I've got a similar pencil in a slightly lighter colour. I love the way this looks on me.

Lord & Berry 20100 Shiny Lip Crayon 'Replay': I do like Lord & Berry products, and I opted for this brown lip crayon shade, which is a colour that is wearable for me and not too bright. I also love that it's not too clumpy.

Nails Inc Gel Effect Polish in 'Hyde Park Place': I like the colour of this off-grey/natural nail polish, but it does take a little while to dry.

May

This month, I opted for more lip products as there's plenty on the website, and I also selected a mascara.

OFRA Long Lasting liquid lipstick in 'Hollywood': This is a brighter shade than the same product that I purchased last month. Because the colours on the website images are not accurate, I had no idea what the shade would be like when it arrived. This is a little too bright for me, but I like the brand.

Mirenesse Mattifinity Lip Rogue in 'Rome': This is a lovely tan-brown matte shade, and I loved this product. I felt the colour suited me, and I liked the fact that it was a matte instead of high gloss.

Mirenesse iCurl Secret Weapon 24 He Mascara 'Black': I liked the brush on this product because it contours to my lashes, so it's easy to apply and isn't lumpy like some other mascara products that I've used in the past.

April

This month's box turned up with three products that were all a similar colour, even though they did not really look similar in the photographs. I opted for two lip products and a blusher.

OFRA Long Lasting liquid lipstick in 'Laguna Beach': The lipstick is a matte colour and I would consider trying out other products in the brand.

ModelCo Creme Rouge Blush in 'Just Peachy': This is a nice shade and I have no issues with the product.

ModelCo Lip Laquer Lip Gloss in 'Morocco': The shade suits me, and I like the matte effect of this lip gloss. It's also not sticky.

March

Cailyn Dizzolv'It cleansing balm: This product was able to remove make-up and dirt without too much hassle, and I would use it again. It feels better on my skin than wiping away with soap and water.

Organis Surge face mask: This facial mask made my skin feel refreshed and firmer after using it. I did enjoy using this product.

Nails Inc special effect polish: This is a high-glitter blue nail polish. I thought that it looked especially pretty, but overall, I was disappointed with the product because it did not last long before it started to chip away. It was also very lumpy, so I would not purchase it again.

Cailyn mineral eye polish: I really wanted the bronze shade, but it was unavailable when I placed my order (typical it was back in stock the following day). I purchased the pink shade instead. Pink isn't my colour. I like the idea of the product and the shimmer; it's just a pity that this is the wrong shade for me.

February

I struggled to find new products this month that I have not tried before. I ended up spending my credits on Nailberry nail polish, which I have not used before, but I liked the packaging design. These turned out to be really nice and all three dried quickly and were easy to apply with the brush.

Nailberry polish in 'Baby Blue': This is a light blue-green shade, and it's trending at the moment. This was my favourite colour out of the three that I used.

Nailberry polish in 'Groseille': This is a light pink shade.

Nailberry polish in 'Strawberry Jam': This is a dark reddish-purple shade that does remind me of strawberry jam and summer. 

I-Tech liquid liner in 'Aesthetic': I really enjoyed the torquoise shade of this product that I picked up last month. This is a brown liner that is a liquid-based and easy to use to line the lids of the eyes. I'm not sure the brown colour is really my style, but there was nothing else that I liked the look of, so I was stuck with this one.

January

BB Highlighting Pen (Almo): This is a decent highlighting pen and is a little thick to use, but it does the job.

Jessica nail polish in 'A La Mode': I expected this colour to be a grey shade, but it's actually a nude shade. The product glides on and it dries quickly.

Radiance Cream Eye Shadow in 'Velvet': This is a liner-shadow, and it's a nice colour, but I found it difficult to apply as the product seemed to be really dry inside. It almost seems that the product is faulty.

Color Perfect Duo Eye Shadow: These two shades compliment each other to be blended, and this is the perfect size of product to carry away for application on the go.

December

I had some additional trouble with Love Me Beauty this month. According to the website, my items were different and my box was not as ordered. Also, my box never arrived so they had to send out a new one with my items, and I only received it just in time for Christmas. I am hoping that this is the last of my issues with Love Me Beauty now as it has been something every month.

S5 Balance Fluid: This is an anti-aging moisturiser. It is absorbed into the skin and does not feel greasy. I am not sure of the results because this would need to be monitored over some time.

OPI nail lacquer in 'My Little Petunia': This is a purple colour, and I like OPI polishes, so I decided to get this to replace a similar OPI shade that I have since thrown away because it was drying out.

Jamma Kidd eye liner in 'abstract': This is a pale turquoise colour, and I really like the product and do not have anything quite like it. The brush is a little too long, in my opinion, and it was a little difficult to apply.

Anatomicals 'never lose your cherry' lip balm: I love the packaging design for this brand. The brand always include witty sentences on their packaging. This cherry lip balm tastes like sweets. It's slightly sticky on my lips, but it's also nourishing. The lip balm also contains sun protection.

November

This was not a great month for Love Me Beauty, with the exception of a lot of new products added to their website that I was dying to try. My November order from Love Me Beauty was screwed up. Firstly, they did not send the complete order, and I had to contact them. I finally received my box at the beginning of December. Secondly, I did not get one of the products (a blush) that I had ordered, and they gave me a product that I will never use (a tanning remover sponge) in its place. As time goes on, I get less and less impressed with this subscription service. In June, I signed up for a year. Two months after signing up, they changed their subscription format to enable users to select the items that they wish to receive. It has gone downhill from there with products that I am not keen on and an over-abundance of nail polish products and the same brands month-on-month but little else.

Anatomicals Spray Misty for Me Facial Spritz: This facial spritz makes my skin feel refreshed. This is the ideal product to take on holidays to use after a long plane flight as traveling on a plane dehydrates the skin. The spritz has a slight fruity fragrance.

Ciate Velvet Manicure (in Blue Suede): This nail polish uses velvet fabric pieces over the top of the nails to create unique nail art. This is a little fiddly and messy to apply the loose velvet to nails once they have been painted, and the hard work does not last too long before it wears off. This is a unique idea but it seems impractical to me.

Revitale Royal Jelly and Collagen Face Mask: This facial mask is slightly fiddly to put on. The mask comes in one piece and should be peeled off the packaging and placed on the face. There are holes for the eyes and nose area. The instructions inform that the product should be left on for approximately 15 minutes, but I left it on a little longer. This made my skin feel cleaner, but it was a little too fiddly for me.

Revitale Nose Strips: Similar to the face mask above, I found these strips to be fiddly to pull off the packaging. Charcoal and magnets are used to remove skin impurities around the nose area. Despite being initially fiddly, I liked the results. The product cleared my pores. I would use these again.

Bronze Buffer: Love Me Beauty messed up my order. Instead of the blusher that I was meant to receive, I received this tanning remover sponge. I do not use tanning cream, so this buffer sponge is useless to me. It can possibly be used for something else, but I am not sure what I will do with it. Perhaps it will be given to a friend.

October

I had an issue with my box not arriving this month, and I think that they had delays in sending the boxes out. They added two credits to my account as a result, so I will have an additional two credits to use next month!

Percy & Reed Hair Shine & Fragrance Spray: This product promises to give hair shine and leave it scented. This hair fragrance has a floral scent, but I do not think that the scent lingered in my hair for too long. It did seem to give my hair a little bit of a shine, but I was not overly impressed with the product.

Weleda Calendula Massage Oil: This product claims to aid in the rebuilding of the protecive layer of skin. This is to be massaged into the skin and it left my skin with a slight fragrance. 

Malin+Goetz Mojito Lip Balm: On the first use, the balm tasted like Mojito. After the product had been opened and after about three uses, the flavour completely disappeared. The product made my lips feel nourished, although it is sticky. I would not buy it again.

Over the Bank Holiday Monday, I ticked an item off of my London bucket list. Last Christmas, the bloke got me an 'I Owe You' for BB Bakery's Afternoon Tea Bus Tour. Booking the afternoon tea bus is a little tricky. I had to book eight months in advance for a weekend (or Bank Holiday) and for a seat on the top deck. Booking had to be at least three months in advance for any seat. While I was at it, I figured that I should do the experience right and book the best seats on the top deck for an extra fee. I booked the right hand side seats on the top deck, facing the front. I hoped for nice weather, despite knowing that the country usually gets poor weather on Bank Holidays. 

Unfortunately, we did have really nasty weather, which made it impossible to get any good photographs out of the bus windows. However, we made the most of it.

Our vintage 1960's London bus turned up, and we clambered up the stairs to our seats. All of the tables were pre-made for the guests.

We had a bottle of orange juice and a selection of sandwiches and pastries. Our tea or coffee orders were also taken soon after the bus slowly drove the streets of London. I ordered Earl Grey tea, and the bloke had English Breakfast tea. The tea provided looked like good quality in teabags, but loose leaf tea tastes much better. The cups provided had screw-on lids as you wouldn't want the boiling water to spill all over your body. Each table had a cup holder for the tea, and the plates were also attached to the tables so that they would not slide off. 

Each table also had a book, and this mentioned some of the monuments along the way. Inside the booklet was a route map. However, we were provided with guided commentary along the way, which I felt really was not needed.

The sandwiches included were cucumber, chicken, quiche, and ham and cheese. I have no complaints about these as they were all tasty.

We were also given a selection of pastries. These included a chocolate macaroon, raspberry cupcake, fruit tart, custard doughnut, and lemon meringue. I loved the custard doughnut and the lemon meringue. The cupcakes were also good, but I have had better. The chocolate macaroon was too sweet for me, and I did not care for the overly-dry base of the fruit tart.

Overall, the pastries were a little under-whelming except for the two items that I mentioned.

Half of the way through, we were each presented with a scone. This came with a pot of strawberry jam and clotted cream. This not the best scone that I have had. 

We passed many of the familiar areas of London and looked out the window as we sipped tea and ate the pastries. I did get a few photographs, despite the rain. 

Overall, the afternoon tea experience is unique, and there's nothing else like it in London. For the novelty value, this was well worth doing. The food and drink was a little under-whelming overall when compared to other afternoon tea experiences. I think we would have enjoyed the experience more had the weather been not pouring with rain and our clothes had not been wet.

At the end of the tour, we each received a box to take home our leftover pastries in. I will admit that the afternoon tea felt slightly rushed as the tour took 1.5 hours, and it could have been slightly longer. However, the staff were friendly and accommodating to our needs. 

Between last summer and earlier this year, Portuguese artist Furia ACK painted several murals across London. The artist creates stunning black and white portraits which convey emotion, and I've documented the work over the past year. One of my favourites is one of the artist's newer pieces, painted on a shutter on Commercial Street (directly below). 

Costah (Nuno Costah), another artist from Portugal who pastes up street art and makes tattoos, contributed with Furia ACK on a couple of murals. Recently, Costah's bird paste-ups have been added all over the streets of London.

The beautiful image below was painted off of Brick Lane, and someone (Jess?) added Santa hats to the figures. The hats appeared just before Christmas. The image is a sad one, but with the hats, it loses the effect.

Another mural that appeared toward the end of last year shows a woman opening Pandora's Box.

And we also have Medusa.

The mural below is titled 'Eve'. She eats the apple with the snake in the background.

Below was the tribute to Charlie Hebdo. The writing did not last long before being painted over.

The image below is titled 'Mercedes Sosa'.

The next portrait is titled 'Victor Jara', with the words 'Freedom of speech is worth dying for.'

Zeca Afonso is the next portrait.

One of the first murals that I discovered from Furia ACK last year was this stunning image of an older man. The portrait looks as though it was created using charcoal.

Furia ACK is based in London, so we may see some more of his work appear across the city.

Fanakapan and Horror Crew are London-based street artists, and their work is always popping up in east London. Their work always brings a smile as they create detailed pieces using everyday objects. A few years ago, it was characters made from Liquorice All-Sorts or balloon animals and birds. I've previously covered their work here and here.

Fanakapan's latest work features silver foil balloons in letters to spell out different words. The lighting and the 'shine' of these balloons is perfect to give them a three-dimensional effect. The artwork pops off the wall. The first that I discovered was in Star Yard, off Brick Lane. The word created from the foil balloons was 'STAR', no doubt after its location.

A few weeks later, I went back to the area to discover Fanakapan creating a new piece on Pedley Street. The work was more than half of the way finished, and I watched Fanapakan create the piece. He did mention to others who were watching that he was getting tired of creating the piece and was getting a little bored of it. I thought that was unfortunate because the work is stunning, and I really love the foil balloon effect.

I went back to Brick Lane a couple of weeks later in order to get a photograph of the finished piece. I am glad that it was not tagged over. The work is highly-detailed, and there's a blue and gold cast of reflection; all of this is achieved through spray paint.

The work reads "Rise & Shine" and is signed "FAN" by the artist (short for Fanakapan).

Fanakapan is based in London, and he's been painting from an early age; he started to paint with spray cans from about ten years of age. He enjoys creating non-offensive pieces that viewers could recognise, and he lets his work bring smiles to faces (1).

On the same wall next to the large mural by Fanakapan is a portrait of a bird, and this is work by Horror Crew. An older piece by Horror Crew is below, and it appeared off Brick Lane (Star Yard) at some point last year.

Just before Easter, a little chick appeared. This is a stunning piece, and I love the detail of the features and the light and shadow.

My next photographs feature older pieces that I had not got around to posting. In the summer and autumn of last year, Fanakapan and Horror Crew were busy with creating new pieces, and I've posted these below. The first was a set of skulls with a balloon-like crown and bubbles, and it appeared on Brick Lane.

Fanakapan and Horror Crew collaborated on the balloon animals and the portrait of a deer.

Fanakapan was painting a lot of balloon animals last year, and in the same spot where the large foil balloon "Rise & Shine", was a selection of balloon animals. This mural had two different iterations.

In the first iteration, The Real Dill painted next to it.

Fanakapan also created toy hip-hop and soldiers off Hackney Road last summer.

On Pedley Street, a mural dedicated to pink elephants was created, and this did last a little while before being replaced. The wording in the background of the balloon animals is the lyrics to the "Pink Elephants on Parade" song from Disney's Dumbo.

This skeleton with a balloon dog looks like a quick piece. I discovered it near Bethnal Green.

Christmas brought us two penguins with a crown. Penguins were the icon of last year's Christmas season and they featured in commercials and shop fronts.

I'm hoping to see some new pieces by Fanakapan and Horror Crew appear in London over the coming months. There's also another pice that I have captured in collaboration with another street artist, so keep checking back.

After visiting Muckross Abbey near Killarney, we had a drive down the road through Killarney National Park in Ireland. This post will cover that evening and our drive the following morning when we woke up bright and early in order to drive around the Ring of Kerry. We'd just been to a visit of Muckross Abbey in the pouring rain, but the rain ceased during the drive. This post will feature some really amazing places that we saw, such as Ladies' View and Torc waterfall, the fishing village of Portmagee, and Kenmare Stone Circle.

Our first stop was not far down the road from the abbey, and that was a visit to Torc Waterfall. We parked up in the parking spaces for cars, which was empty except for one other car. The rain must have chased everyone away. It was raining lightly, but the trail was covered by trees and the waterfall was not too far away; I anticipated that we could walk to the waterfall in under ten minutes.

We saw the brook with beautiful rhododendrons along its banks as we walked further into the trees. 

I loved the green moss growing everywhere. Everything (rocks, tree trunks, the ground) seemed to be covered by the green moss.

At last, we arrived at Torc Waterfall and watched the water cascade down and over the rocks. It was beautiful. Even better was that no one else was around; we had the waterfall to ourselves. The water cascades down from Torc Mountain and is 20 metres high.

Isn't it beautiful?

Actually, Muckross Abbey is just across the fields from the waterfall, and the horse-drawn carriages (jaunting cars) can make the trip between the two places. This would be nice for a sunny day. There's also a pathway to stairs up to the top of the waterfall with nice views over the lakes, but we did not do this.

After we had seen enough of the waterfall, we headed back to the car. After all the rain, the trees were surrounded by the large puddles of rainwater.

I loved the beautiful rhododendrons. They were everywhere.

We continued to drive around Killarney, and we headed south. There were nice views of the lakes that we could see as we drove.

The fog was lifting, and as we climbed the mountains, the rain ceased. 

The sun started to come out, and we saw a beautiful rainbow. I stopped to get a couple of photographs. We soon came to the summit of the hill, at Ladies' View. We were rewarded with the most beautiful landscape that I'd ever seen with a rainbow. In fact, it was a double rainbow for awhile.

Ladies' View is the location in Killarney where Queen Victoria's ladies-in-waiting admired in 1861, and it was named after them. There's a small area for parking and a cafe opposite where the views can be enjoyed. Of course, it was quiet and the cafe was shut for the day. One other car did stop to admire the rainbow while we were. We stopped for a short while, and I got several photographs.

This was the last view before we drove back to Killarney for the evening.

The next day, we woke early to begin our day. Our first stop was to get to Portmagee, a small fishing village along the Ring of Kerry, west of Killarney. The plan was to get the boat from here to Michael Skellig, an island off the coast which is a UNESCO heritage site with beehive huts. The morning was foggy.

The fog cleared, and the weather did not seem too bad, but we did have rain. 

We arrived in Portmagee at last. Portmagee is a successful fishing village with a long history in fishing. Boats were also built here. Scallop fishing and lobster/crab fishing are currently done too. 

The village also has a New Year's eve celebrating dating back to 1727. Three days after Christmas, a boat from France came into the port and docked. On New Year's Eve, the crew of the French boat started to carry torches and marched through the village. They were led by a piper and in the middle of the group was an old man staggering as they paraded the street. The parade returned to their boat and a shot was heard, and the old man lay on the ground. Another man, a younger one, came out of the boat he and the old man continued the route with the piper to parade again. The French then explained that the old man symbolised the old year and the new man that joined him symbolised the new one. This tradition is still carried out in Portmagee. It's been cited as one of the top three place to be at New Year's Eve for the millennium. In 2008, the parade was led by members of the NY police department band. 

We waited to hear some news about our trip on the fishing boat to Michael Skellig, and I ended up phoning them up. Unfortunately, the weather out to sea was too bad and windy, so this was cancelled. 

We left Portmagee and carried driving around the Ring of Kerry. As we drove north, we soon realised that the weather on this part of the land was really bad. It was windy and rainy and foggy.

We stopped in a couple of places and took some photographs before continuing on our way back to Kilarney.

We arrived in Kenmare for lunch, and we had lunch here and looked around this small but pleasant village. I got a cupcake as there was a bakery in the town. The lunch was at a hotel's pub.

Kenmare is also the location of a stone circle a short walk from the town centre. Kenmare Stone circle was built in the bronze age (2200 - 500 BC), and is the largest stone circle in the southwest of Ireland. The stone circle was thought to be based on the setting of the sun. The centre of the monument is a burial, known as Boulder Burial, and these are not often found anywhere else except southwest Ireland.

When we arrived, there was already a large group of people looking around the stones. One of them was standing where there was a missing stone for a long time, and she looked strange pretending to be the stone and looking like she was trying to get some source of energy from it. I think I broke the circle as I got impatient waiting for her to move and went to the middle of the stone circle.

After our visit to the stone circle, it was back to the car to go back to Killarney National Park. On the way, we came to a monument based on the town's history. It was once a ghetto, and those who lived in appaling conditions there were offered free passage to America. The film 'Gangs of New York' is based on these people, who had their own support community.

The weather was still not good, unfortunately. We came to some views that would have been beautiful had the sun been out. This was a real pity.

Our next stop would be to take a jaunting car in Killarney National Park and visit Ross Castle, so keep checking back for my other posts on Ireland.