Slow Food Picnic

ANOTHER convivial Slow food event - I’ve just had the best fun wending my way up to the top of Lough Ine Hill - my daughter and my well-toned friend from boarding school powered their way ahead, I adopted a more leisurely pace.

This was the annual Slow Food Picnic so I was retracing the steps of Edith Somerville and Violet Martin Ross, who brought a picnic to Lough Ine on the last Sunday in August every year. I wonder if they were interested in wild mushrooms or did they scramble among the wild bilberry bushes in their long skirts to collect the tiny, wild intensively flavoured little berries.

When we eventually reached the top the view was spectacular. The plateau was covered with exuberantly blooming heather. We sat on rounded stones and tucked into Clodagh McKenna’s yummy picnics - our reward for huffing and puffing our way to the top.