Finding A Husband

Last week, Husb and I crossed the Shannon River a couple of times on the Tarbert Ferry, connecting County Kerry to Clare. It’s become my favourite ferry. It’s cute. It crosses the Shannon in about 15 minutes, between power stations on each bank. On the Kerry side, in Tarbert, is a fab little cafe in the local jail and they make really nice rhubarb tart. Once we got off in Clare, we turned left onto the coast road and a succession of lovely small towns, with great food and scenery.

We pootled across The Burren and ended up in Lisdoonvarna, which was absolutely mental with bunting all over the place and throngs, yes throngs, of people surging raucously through the sunny streets. We’d gone there to find the smokehouse – I’d crawl to hell and back for the promise of  smoked salmon – but we’d ended up in the middle of the biggest matchmaking festival in Europe! Most of the potential husbands looked a couple of decades older than Husb, so I didn’t bother trading him in. We found the smokehouse and the honey roasted hot-smoked salmon is to die for.

Here’s a sketch done on the ferry, with the Tarbert power station and lighthouse in the background. It’s drawn with Faber Castell Pitt drawing pens into an A5 cloth-bound sketchbook, prepared with ripped brown wrapping paper stuck in with Pritt stick. I haven’t found any glue as good as Pritt.