Jean Reinhardt

Here she is wearing a colourful hat that I bought for her in Menorca. It suited her personality, bright, friendly, full of fun and definitely colourful. My lovely Mum passed away in September this year just before turning 88. It was a few months ago but feels like it was yesterday. The last year of her life was spent in St. Oliver Plunketts’s nursing home in Dundalk and they looked after her so,…

As promised on my last Thursday Doors post, we’ll take a look inside the Natural History Museum in London. If you think the outside is ornate wait till you see the interior! This is what greets you as you enter the main hall – Hintze Hall – an amazing ceiling of 162 hand decorated panels, botanical images of the earth’s abundant plantlife. All of them washed in a golden light. I know the huge…

Earlier in the year I spent a weekend in London so of course I captured a few Thursday Doors while I was there. The last time I was in Victoria Underground Station was in the late 1980s. Thankfully most of the older buidings are still there today. You can find a tiny bit of France in London if you keep an eye out for it. The Institut Français du Royaume-Uni represents and promotes French…

In part 2 of this Thursday Doors Florence Court tour we’ve gone through the narrow archway and ended up at the estate’s forge. I can only imagine how hot this place must have been for the blacksmith back in the day when we had long hot summers in Ireland. Did we ever have long hot summers here? I do remember one when I was a child but that was over half a century ago – we must be due another…

I’ve been meaning to feature Florence Court House on Thursday Doors for a long time now but there is so much to see that I’ve divided it into two parts, so welcome to part 1. Above is a view of the back of this 18th century Georgian property which is set in a large estate and has the Benaughlin and Cuilcagh Mountains for a backdrop. It’s located about eight miles from the town of Enniskillen in…

I thought I’d give you a nice Spanish welcome to my first Thursday Doors post of 2023 – bienvenido. However, as it turns out this is now my second post as I had forgotten to publish it. A friend alerted me to that fact when she couldn’t find it online, so thank you so much Judy for asking me about it. As we drove around town I managed to snap a couple of pretty casitas. The next few photos were…

Welcome to my second Thursday Doors post of 2023 and this one is from Dundalk gaol or jail depending on what century you live in and the version of English you speak, lol. The prison was built in 1853 at a cost of £23,000 and opened in January 1854. Men were incarcerated in the wing pictured above and women in a similar but seperate building. I featured it in the second book of my Irish Family…

Thursday Doors – Sunny Spain

I thought I’d save this Thursday Doors post for wintertime here in the Northern hemisphere as it hails from sunny Spain. These photos are from a trip there in late September, while the weather was still hot. This first image is of the view from one of my favourite restaurants at La Zenia beach on the Meditereanean. We ate there at least once a week when we lived on the Orihuela Costa, where we…

New Book Site – A Reader’s Delight

Best books that genuinely reflect the time they are set in. There’s a new book site that I think will delight any avid reader. It’s called Shephard and went live on April 19th 2021. They Beta launched with 400 authors and 2,000 book recommendations and I love this site not only as an author but as a reader, too. Within a year that booklist had grown to 25,000 and it’s even bigger now. The five…

Finding Kaden Launched in an Ice Cream Parlour.

Some might scoff at the idea of having a book launch in an ice cream parlour but it was an ideal setting. A lot of scoffing did go on – of delicious ice cream, fabulous desserts, yummy hot chocolate and coffee that was out of this world. Finding Kaden is the first book in the young adult series of The Finding Trilogy, so an ice cream parlour seemed a very appropriate place to do a book signing.…

Thursday Doors – Dundalk Museum 2

Thursday Dooors – Dundalk Museum 1

No, this isn’t the entrance to the museum in Dundalk but it does make an interesting Thursday Doors photo. Located in a beautifully restored 18th century warehouse, the award-winning County Museum traces the history of Dundalk and County Louth from the Mesolithic era to the modern day through a variety of interactive displays. With three floors of permanent exhibitions and a changing and…

Thursday Doors – Earl Street

Earl Street in Dundalk County Louth is such an interesting place, I don’t know why I haven’t posted more about it on Thursday Doors. Most of the buildings have been beautifully preserved like the restaurant above. It is part of a premises that was built in 1875 and used to house the Dundalk Democrat, a local paper that operated from a hotel originally in 1849 and is still in business today just…

Thursday Doors – Behind the Hedges.

Welcome to June’s edition of Thursday Doors and in this one I try to capture some lovely old houses hidden behind the hedges of a quiet country road outside Derry City, Northern Ireland. Most of the homes on this road are inhabited but this second image is of a quaint old cottage just waiting for someone to renovate and move in. Some great shutters on this one. Could be the second floor as I…