Farewell to An Nead
29 September 2018
Late yesterday, when we got back from Pádraicíns, we made a fire and settled in for our last night at An Nead. Sometimes you think that if you hold off going to bed, you can prolong your time just a bit more. We eventually did have to head off to bed though, and got up a bit early in the morning. There was a lot to do and much ground to cover, as we were spending much of the day in Galway city before making our way down to our farm stay in County Clare. We took our time though, making a breakfast with the last of our Burren Smokehouse salmon and the fresh eggs from our goodie basket before straightening up and packing our bags. We took one last stroll through our cottage...
Sometimes, when you travel to many places and see many different things, you are excited to move on and take the next step. There is always somewhere new to explore, something new to find and you are eager to go find it, and the place you are now is just one of the many stops along the way. But then sometimes there are the places that are a bit more special, more than just another place to sleep, more than just another stop on the journey. These are the places that burrow deep into our hearts and refuse to let us go. An Nead is one of those places for us, possibly even the greatest of those places. More than anywhere I’ve stayed and places I’ve lived, even more than my house that I bought, An Nead has felt like home. It is so dreadfully hard to leave. As excited as we are for the next stop, the new places, the next adventure... we still need a home base, and I emphatically wish that home base could be here.
We turn the key and lock the green half-door and say our goodbyes. Down the village road, we stop and are greeted by Charlie and Dearbhaill to see us off. We really couldn’t ask for more gracious hosts. They insist that we are to come back and not to wait another decade to do so, and we couldn’t agree more. I wonder how we made it a full ten years in the first place. Back down the long dirt drive, we stop to open the gate one last time. We turn down the road toward Spiddal, bidding Cnoc Suain our fondest farewell.
We didn’t make it very far down the road before we were stopped by farmers moving a herd of cattle down the street. An “Irish traffic jam” so they say. I do really love it here.
We decided to stop off at the beach next to Pádraicíns to walk out and see the sea. It was a nice day so far, and honestly it’s been a nice trip in general as far as the weather has gone. We were slowly walking across the sand towards the water and I put my hands in my jacket pocket, mindlessly fidgeting with the keys to An Nead. I stood and looked out over the sea, thinking back on our memories here, and....
Wait a minute. We checked out of An Nead. Why are the keys still in my pocket?
Maybe it was all the things going on in our minds, or maybe it was a subconscious way of trying to stay, but I never gave the keys back to Charlie as we left! It looked like our stop in Galway would need to be pushed back a bit, since we had to rush our way back to Cnoc Suain to give them their keys!
