A Night On Big Dog Mountain

Belleek

Well - where else were we going to camp with Bonnie out on her very first holiday?

I finally got up the street in Belleek and found it friendly and charming. Belleek straddles the border so while we were there we popped over to Leitrim to take a look at Rossinver Organic Centre. I have to say I found it very inspiring.

Rossinver Organic Centre

I loved the living willow sculptures. I was jealous of the indoor (polytunnel) garden and I thought the mint garden was inspired. That's third along on the bottom row of the collage. Mint is notoriously invasive so they'd planted each variety in big tubs built ino the curving stone wall. Lovely to sit there nibbling on the different varieties of mint. Naturally chocolate mint was my favourite.

From Lough Melvin to donkeys near Big Dog Mountain

Here are some general observations about Fermanagh and Fermanagh people - it strikes me as a fey county, there is a sense that the fairies are not far away. I get that same feeling in Leitrim too. Garrison is full of old farmers who stand in the middle of the road so that the traffic has to drive around them. Those old guys seem to be saying, "I was born and reared in these parts and I'll stand in the middle of the road if I please!" Derrygonnelly folk are mostly very small. We watched a funeral go by and I don't believe there was a single man there taller than 5' 8". Enniskillen comes across as a gentle town. The Big Dog forest is full of donkeys.

We camped there and there wasn't a dry stick to be had. We were very glad of our bag of County Antrim turf. The fire Bert made was awesome but next time I go camping in October I'll be wearing thermal everything. Bonnie, with her thick fur pelt, was untroubled by the cold and looked like she was thoroughly enjoying her first ever holiday. That was once she was certain she wasn't off to the vet again.

A Weekend In Belleek

It’s over than twenty years ago that Nellybert and The Wee Mannys went to Fermanagh for the weekend. We stayed in little chalets near Belleek which were, and still are, very popular with fishermen.

To say it was a fraught weekend would be putting it lightly although it all started well. On our first evening The Wee Manny volunteered to be Chef and was for preparing the Best Steak in the World which involved stuffing. Don’t ask why – it was the eighties. While he was creating culinary heaven the rest of us, including baby Laura, went to the nearest pub. The atmosphere was not what you’d expect of an Irish hostelry. There seemed to be little evidence of the famous Irish hospitality or craic. Of course we thought it was just because they didn’t like the look of us. And maybe they didn’t.

We didn’t stay there long. Before we left I promised myself a browse round the Belleek shops next day. It was not to be.

While we’d been out The Wee Manny had become bestest chums with the Swedish fishermen in the next door chalet. It seems they had toasted this new-forged friendship in many, many glasses of Bushmills. Oh dear. Whiskey was never the Wee’s best choice of a drink as it tended to make him a wee bit crabbit.

But at least the dinner was ready. The salad was very nice. Maybe a tad rough, but tasty enough. The steak was overdone. Uncharitable people would have said burned. But not so burned it was inedible. Something very strange had happened to the stuffing. It must have exploded. The Wee never explained. But it was everywhere. All over the table, on the floor, on the chairs, in the salad, in his hair, up his nose, stuck to his eyebrows – we didn’t mention it. The tiny bit that made it on to our plates was delicious and we were effusive in our praise. We got drunk.

And then to bed. What a night. We hardly slept a wink for the sound of gunfire. Turned out that the IRA were shooting at the Belleek RUC station from across the border the entire night.

Next day found the village completely cordoned off and the Swedish fishermen strangely stand-offish. It was far too dangerous to let locals or tourists go up the street. So we spent the day border-hopping. If we were stopped at a check point once, we were stopped twenty times. If it wasn’t the Gardai it was the RUC or the British Army. That night we nodded off to the sound of gunfire once again. Fermanagh is a beautiful county but we weren’t one bit sorry to return to the relative tranquillity of Antrim*.

Tomorrow Bert and I are thinking of returning to Belleek for the first time in over twenty years. We’ll be hoping to find it a bit more relaxed than the last time. We’ll let you know.

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*During the Troubles our part of Antrim had its share of incidents but compared to the cities and the border counties we lived a fairly normal life. Or so we thought. It wasn’t until it eased off that I realised how grim those times had been.