A grand day out.

Tradition denotes that on St Stephen day, all the Brennan's that are still standing after the Christmas day festivities, go for a walk.  But this year, due to inclement weather (it was lashing rain!), we had to stay indoors.

Our annual outing was postponed until yesterday, when we braved the heavy frost and went for a walk in the Phoenix Park, and fed the deer.  The herds are used to humans and are quite friendly.  Especially when you bring a bag of carrots to feed them with.  We tried to find Rudolph, but to the children's disappointment, he was nowhere to be seen!

We had Rusty with us.  He sat quietly and watched, until the stag got too close to the children, then he got quite annoyed.  Although I'm not sure if he was annoyed because the stag got too close or because the stag got a carrot and he didn't!

We soon ran out of carrots and had to move on.  We made for the Boathouse where we had coffee and cake.  And even though it was freezing we sat outside beside the lake, so that Conor could watch the ducks swimming.  I don't have a picture of that, my hands were too cold to take any more photos and stayed clamped around my coffee cup to keep warm!  But it was lovely, and the trees around Farmleigh still had Christmas lights in them adding to the atmosphere.

Pity it got dark so early and cut short our day out.  We got fish and chips on the way home so that nobody would have to cook!  I think that should be a new tradition!  No more cooking!

Don't think I would get away with that...??