Berried Treasure

I am not doing well at catching up on my photos! My hayfever is still bad, whatever is triggering it.
So the Greek photos are still waiting to be sorted - especially as we were away last weekend.
We went down to Clare and had a lovely restful, lazy time. On Saturday we went out picking sloes, so now there are several jars of sloe gin on the go - it should be ready to start drinking at Christmas. By a coincidence (I suppose not, given the time of year) there was actually a recipe for it in the magazine section of the Irish Times over the weekend, which saved me looking it up yet again. Fill a jar 1/4 full with sugar, then fill to 3/4 full with pierced sloes and then fill with gin. Shake regularly for the first couple of weeks and then occasionally thereafter. Strain and bottle after three months. Some recipes I have read say it improves the longer you can keep it, but we've never had any last more than two or three years so I can't verify this.
Inspired by our weekend I chose the theme of Berried Treasure for the photo challenge on SCS this week. And even with that in mind, I didn't find any good blackberries, just a rather scrubby bush along the driveway. I can probably do better at the end of our own garden if it's sunny tomorrow.

Sloes on the Burren

Some sort of wild rose, I think - I know I've seen it in flower on the Burren

Hawthorn in the garden

Spindle berry in Dromore Wood

Sloes and unknown tree in Dromore Wood

Unknown Burren plant - possibly the little wild rose

As you can see from the blue skies we did well with the weather - apart from getting pretty soaked on our way back to the car after picking the sloes.