Ballymaloe Blog

Entertaining guests this summer has been easy with the good weather and more often than not this entertaining involves the guests getting involved in Ballymaloe life. Most evenings Rory Allen takes guests and friends fishing at Ballycotton in his boat “MOLLY DANIEL”.

So it’s been a while since I last updated my blog and I apologize for that. So much as happened since then. Where do I begin? After looking back at my last two posts I realized I never actually talked about what exactly I do here at Ballymaloe. My shift is split into two ( which I’m not used to but I have the afternoons to myself :) ). In the morning I go around and pick and arrange flowers into lovely clay pots for the dining rooms and the bedrooms for the guests when they arrive. In the evening I am the official “trolly dolly” as they say.

So it has been nearly four weeks now since I have arrived at Ballymaloe and I am continuing my Ireland adventure, and enjoying every second of it! This past Sunday two of my friends, Todd and JR and I went to Ballycotton to have a few drinks at the Irish pub; “The Blackbird”. I have never been to the pub before, but I have heard so much about the place from everyone, including my sister Rochelle who also worked at Ballymaloe about eight years ago, that I just had to go! The town has such a wonderful relaxing atmosphere, much like Ballymaloe House.

So it has been exactly three weeks since I have arrived here at The Ballymaloe House. I have to emphasize how exquisite and miraculous this place truly is. For a Country House hotel in the middle of the country, this place has so much history, amazing food and the people here are absolutely lovely. I was also quite surprised to see how many people working here were not from Ireland. For instance some who work here are from South Africa, Mauritius, Tanzania, France, Canada (me :)) and other places. How random is that? Only at Ballymaloe. Where else would one rather be?

Celebration is all around as we welcome the latest addition to the Ballymaloe Farm. A lovely, healthy litter of piglets.