Suddenly this Country Speaks to Me

After 5 weeks away in Europe-proper, the dread grey is hard to take. But visitors are coming, Leathermanman has some days off - so I'll take off out Kerry way for 3 days, 2 nights away.

I was so in need of fresh air, wind, space from endless boy-drudgery, out to endless open spaces where I can feel some magic. And we found them. Wild country, orange and dark grey. Muckross House. Steel grey stone hunting lodge, by the side of the lake, light piercing the skies and clouds, as if the angels were just sitting up above. A scene almost monochrome, the green lawn barely green, the water slatey grey.

Inside Muckross House, it's a timepiece, a journey into Victorian England. With Nora, one of the best tour guides you could ask for. We were led behind the scenes, as if the families had just left, as she told us the history of the house, the people, the romance, the hopes bound up in it all. Almost as if someone might turn up, if we hesitated too long on one of the staircases.

Imagine getting a gift like that as a wedding present! And, before that, the hopes tied up in renovations and extensions and endless gardening expansions - in view of a visit from Queen Victoria. So she came, she stayed, walked up to the waterfall, slept in her camp bed on the ground floor in a room with a custom-built fire escape (she was terrified of fire), no doubt dined on the finest - potatoes and roast and who knows what other heavy Victorian fare in the heavy Victorian dining room. And then she left, no doubt with good intentions. But Albert had the temerity to die soon after her return, and in her grief, the thoughts of knighting her good host at Muckross just fell away. I really felt the colonial past of this house - the expat nature of those living here.

And, by holding the land as one large holding in private hands for hundreds of years, the land could become Ireland's first national park, when the republic was formed and the English landlords were sent packing. If it had gone into Irish hands, it may have been broken up into countless tiny holdings, and not preserved the richness of the forest around these parts. The house stood shut up and empty for years - imagine! - and has since been painstakingly restored. Some photos from the British Museum were used to make new curtains and wallpapers, fitting Victorian times. Did they call it Victorian times while she was queen?

I LOVED walking through the arboretum, alone, in damp, green air, collecting chestnuts for small children, but not hauling one by the hand. (I know, still thinking about them, even when away from them ... but it makes all the difference sometimes!)

A wonderful place to bring visitors from Berlin, all citied-out as they can get. Autumn trees, ancient yew, rain falling by the lake, gold and red and orange leaves. We walk in it anyway as the pram has a cover, and we're rigged up.