Bell tent chandelier

As anyone who has been to this blog before will know, I'm obsessed with my beautiful bell tent. So for my birthday my siblings got me the most fabulous tealight chandelier to hang in it. It can be used in the house too of course, but it's all about the few times each year I get to bling out the tent like this:

 

 

 

image from www.belltent.co.uk

 

Below, the chandelier hanging in my living room, just begging to be let loose in the great outdoors.

 

 

 Thanks Helen, Colm and Maria.

Celtic Carvings at Kinnagoe Bay

 

Just in front of where we camped at the weekend there were some celtic carvings on some rocks, not unlike those on the stones at the neolithic Newgrange passage tomb in County Meath. Most of us there agreed that the chisel marks looked a bit fresh to be have been made by ancient man, but in a way it doesn't matter to me whether they're 'real' or not. It shows that the celtic spirit lives on in Ireland. And Kinnagoe Bay is one special place. Remote, beautiful, wild.

 

 

We found a charcoal stick just asking to be drawn with, so I drew what I always draw - the triple spiral I had tattooed on my foot recently.

 

 

Danny and I made a trip to the car for supplies and the tide was so high on the way back that we had to climb over some rocks instead of going round them, and that path revealed another spiral carving, more like a labyrinth. And the next time I looked for it I spotted yet another spiral, this one exactly the same as my tattoo (inspired by the Newgrange chamber carving). When I went back to photograph it, it had rained and it couldn't be seen as clearly. Have a look to see if you can spot it just below the crack in the photo below.

 

The long trek we took to our camping spot on the second beach meant that we saw not one stranger on our beach during the four days we were there.

 

Magic.

The Bell Tent at Kinnagoe.

Despite the mammoth trek to our secluded beach, and with some help from our friends, Danny and I carried the famous bell tent and all the necessary accessories needed to make things really comfortable on the beach.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Blankets, blankets and more blankets.

 

The guys kept a fire pit going fairly steadily from Thursday until Sunday and produced copious amounts of meat to keep us all sustained. There was even proper coffee with rum for breakfast and locally cut turf, my favourite smell in the world.

 

 

 

The Thai triangle cushions I carted all the way back from Bangkok were worth the extra weight, and having Bob the dog around made it feel like a proper camping trip. On the second night another group of friends arrived and we happily discovered that our tent can easily and cosily shelter ten people from the rain for a solstice party. We woke up to a lazy sunny Saturday.

 

 

 

 

Natural alcoves in the rocks were perfect for holding teacandles.

All in all the air was fresh, the beach was all ours, the company was beloved, the scenery was spectacular, and I'm pretty sure the rocks were magic.

You should go.

 

Summer Solstice at Kinnagoe

 

This weekend past saw a much-anticipated camping trip to Kinnagoe Bay in Donegal with a group of about 12 friends. We treked across the beach in the picture above and then climbed over to the second bay hidden behind the headland.

 

It was a bit of a mission by itself and then we had a 20 kilo tent and everything bar the kitchen sink to drag over there too. If I'd known how epic the walk would be I might have packed a little lighter but at least we were cosy in the bell tent. Poor Danny carried it.

 

 

We stayed up all night to see the solstice sunrise and larked about in the surf.

 

 

And the solstice eve gave way to a most beautiful longest day of the year.

 

adventures with a bell tent

 

 

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A full seven months after buying my beautious bell tent, Danny and I finally got a weekend with decent enough weather to get out and use it. We went to Tullymore Forest Park in Newcastle, Co.Down and got a spot with a view over the forest and the tallest mountain in Ulster - Slieve Donard.

 

Bell tents are pretty easy to erect because the central pole does most of the work of holding the tent up, and I brought lots of throws, thai cushions and a proper feather duvet and pillows to make things comfy.

It's not quite the sumptuous game-of-thrones style tent I've been planning but it's halfway there and there's another camping trip planned with friends for the summer solstice. And next time I'm bringing board games, nights in a tent with no entertainment can be very long!