I sent an email to a friend recently in which I told him that we were going to spend a couple of days on Inishbofin.
In his reply he referred to our destination as Inis Bofin.
I took this to be a correction - if not a slap on the wrist - for Anglicizing an Irish place name which, I have since discovered, to be Inis Bo Finne.

I have no doubt but that many of you will have already guessed whom my interlocutor will have been in this instance and I await further opinion, clarification or reprimand - from whatever quarter.

But we are back now from the white cow's island and can declare it to be a delightful spot once one escapes the mess of the arrival point.

Our purpose in going was to seek some respite from the effort and emotion of Alice's wedding the previous weekend.
As you may know, my general rule here is not to reveal too many details on personal matters, and certainly not those of others, so you may search elsewhere for more on the wedding and I'm sure you will discover as much as you may desire on the various social and linked sites. I will go just so far as to say that it was a day full of love, sun, magic, colour and creativity and that they sought their respite in Ibiza.

But back to our island visit.

It charms me that the Inishbofin website describes the Island as being just five miles long or wide and three miles from top to bottom. It charms me because, while I am fully adapted to millimetres and centimetres - by which I mean that I can envisage these measurements just as accurately as I can the feet and inches, and the fractions thereof, with which I was brought up - I still find it easier to estimate a mile than I do a kilometre.

We were there for less than forty-eight hours but, in truth, that was sufficient to explore and enjoy it.

We did two of the three sign-posted walks and observed the marked contrast between the east and west ends of the island.

I'll let the pictures speak for themselves but another pleasure was to witness mixed-farming that I remember so well from the 1970's but has since been almost eradicated from the mainland. - To peer over a wall and see cows, a few sheep - along with the ram - maybe a pig or a goat with chickens and, surprisingly, large numbers of geese, took me back and reminded me of gentler times.

The view from our hotel bedroom of the inner, inner harbour and the old, working pier, to and from which all the island's needs are received and despatched.

The west end of the island is accessed by this greenest of all green roads......

.....which is bordered by a trade mark Connemara stone wall - too tall and too slender to be stable, says one's eye but probably there for a hundred or more years and buffeted by constant Atlantic storms.

And this west end of the island is grassy with cliffs and sandy beaches beneath......

..... and with hundreds and hundreds of these excavations by some creature. Too plentiful for badgers and too large for rabbits which would not have the strength to shift the large stones, we figured.

And the opposite, east end of the island is utterly different in terrain and vegitation, principally heather.....

...and with a promontory fort - so the maps and plans said - though there was no remnant of a fort but it was distinguished by its green vegetation, unique to the rest of the area.

This end of the island also had sandy, though seaweedy, beaches......off one of which we swam.

And these geese, which we figured were originally domestic but had gone feral,
afforded us great entertainment over dinner each evening as they made their predictable way to bed.....

A grand excursion..