RED HAIR, 16 GOLF BALLS AND 52 OYSTERS

...might sound like key ingredients to a witches cauldron but were in fact the main ingredients of my Easter weekend in Donegal, Ireland. There were quite a few curious things about where I went, curious enough to blog about that is.

FIrstly, the house we stayed in belonged to not one, not two but three aunts who live there with not one, not two but three of their husbands AND not one, not two but ALL 10 of their children!! "Wow!" i thought, mimicking the immortal words of the Duchess of Cambridge on the balcony of Buckingham Palace a weekend later, with 'I wonder where I'm going to be sleeping' as an after thought.

Secondly, the aunt's family with the most children (which was 4) had produced not one (okay this is getting tiresome now, I'll stop) but THREE redheads. The parents are both blond. 'Curious', I thought. It took me right back to my A-level biology classes - the ones about dominant and recessive genes - the conclusion being ...I obviously wasn't listening.

Thirdly, I was taken down to the shores of Loch Swilly (Whose willy? Nope? No one found that funny at Easter either) and shown the delightful cottage where my boyfriend was born. It was called The Ferry House. 'Even MORE curious', went my thoughts, for I too was born in the Ferry House, not this one, but another in Cambrdigeshire. Could the uncanniness just stop already???!!

Fourthly (if such a rank exists), I found an oyster on the beach took it back to the house, opened it, broke the knife, to my delight found it was alive, added a squeeze of lemon, a shake of Tabasco and plopped it into my mouth. It really was the most delicious thing that had happened to my tongue in years. Not wanting to be the only one experiencing such pleasures in my hostsssss' house, I went down to the beach with my Ferry House twin and a Sainsbury's bag and like two truffle pigs we managed to scout 52 of them, 26 each EXACTLY. (Coincidences had become rather passe by this point, but admittedly this was erring on the uncanny side.)

After the team (we had become a team by this point, with team leaders and everything it was just easier) had scoffed the lot, we went to bed that night, in oyster bliss....

Next morning, on another walk along the beach, I was told by a local, wandering Swilly's shores (I feel a Cornish du Maurier's 'Rebecca' boatman accent works the imagination best here): "You know ther wer a sewage leak not so long agow?" I didn't actually. CUE PSYCHO MUSIC, A BIT OF THE JAWS SOUNDTRACK THEN MY DAY-MARE of having wiped out an entire family of two generations over one weekend.

The visual equivalent of my daymare. Them - all gone!! Because of me...
Oh dear... some repayment for being asked for such a wonderful weekend.


After a sleepless night of listening outside doors to confirm the correct number of snores per room, I woke to find them all still alive (curiously - no. 5 I think we can call that).

They are still alive now. I have checked (regularly). And no one has turned flourescant or grown crab pincers... yet.

PHEW!

The Human Crab hmmm.... you missed a trick there Hitchcock.