Reviewer Bani Sodermark. Bani has a Ph.D in mathematical physics and has been a teacher of physics and mathematics at the university level in both India and Sweden. For the last decade, her interests have been spirituality, healthy living and self-development. She has written a number of reviews on Amazon. Bani is a mother to two children.
Author:
Kerry Dwyer
Publisher: Create Space Independent Publishing
Platform
ISBN-10:1478392762
ISBN-13:
978-1478392767
Blarney-
the Likes You’ve Never Known
As is clear from the title,
this is a chatty account of a walking holiday that the author took in
the south of Ireland. She was accompanied by her husband,
Bernard.
Their trip started from the city of Cork. Their first
stop was at Sheep’s Head, where they walked a distance of sixteen
km around the Sheep’s Head loop on a moderate to difficult terrain.
The next day, they covered the Bullig Bay Loop, a distance of four km
over laneways and forest tracks. On the third day, a Tuesday, they
did a distance of 6.3 km on the Derrynane Mass Path, from Derrynane
House to the National Heritage Park on minor roads and a shoreline.
On the fourth day, they walked a distance of fourteen km around the
Fermoyle loop on a minor road. The following day, they walked the
Benteen loop, a distance of nine km on steep ascent mountain paths.
On the last day, a Friday, they did a distance of fifteen km around
the Muckross Lake and Torc Waterfall, through woods and lakeside
tracks.
If you like your travelogues to be short and snappy,
you can stop reading this review at this point and give this book a
go-by. Because with every incident connected with this book, and even
without, we get to see generous tidbits of Kerry’s life and who she
is, inside out. We get to know her background in England, both her
parents and their singular characteristics, her closest friends and
associates, vignettes of her working life, her daughter, her husband
and his parents to name a few. We get to see why this trip
materialized, how they chose the bags to take along and what they
packed inside.
The air trip to Cork is described in detail as
is the arrival at Cork airport and the subsequent journey in a hired
car to a village in Sheep’s Head, where they receive a warm welcome
at a B&B. The rest of this trip is equally detailed and
embellished at various tangents, with more details and incidents from
Kerry’s life, that she was reminded of when writing this book. She
mentions her (mis)adventures while reading maps, her experiences with
walking boots and getting them drenched in the rain during this trip,
and of course, the food (the pair of them) like to eat in general,
and the food they ate on this trip in particular. At the end of your
read, you will know every possible detail of Kerry Dwyer’s life
that you would ever want to know, even her underwear and pee-ing
habits are not spared. Not to forget, a chapter on books and
the effect they have had on herself and her family.
Interspersed
with details of herself and her family, Kerry provides interesting
and informative nuggets of information on the places they visit. She
also relates the conversations she had with Bernard on this trip as
they visit one beautiful landscape after another, and one gets a
glimpse of a rare togetherness that the walking in this trip
instilled in them, a special shared intimacy that made them plan to
do this trip once again in the future.
As stated earlier, if
you want the bare facts about your walking trip to south Ireland,
don’t read this book. For those who want to look at a deeper level
at what a visit to Ireland and a one-to-one interaction with its
friendly people can do for you, this bit of Irish blarney can attract
you like a magnet attracts iron. You truly get to feel the laid back
Irish soul within its pages.