A long overdue trip to see a friend in County Down gave me the perfect excuse to revisit a site I have never felt I 'got an angle on' and to see a few new ones. Unfortunately the weather was terrible and I still don't have a better feeling for the site and only managed a few new sites.

Even in such bad weather being around the Mourne Mountains, which have a rather magical habit of disappearing in mist and cloud, is a great experience. KNowing that such massive things are there, so close and yet invisible, is quite unnerving.

My recent trip to Reyfad (County Fermanagh) inspired me to try and get more rock art on the site. The lack of truly insane journeys lately made me decide to head for the Ring of Kerry, a round trip of some 700km, to satisfy both desires.

The drive down was not too bad, with small showers along the way. The first part of the day was dry with a little sunshine, but in the late afternoon I was soaked as I returned to find a site I couldn't locate earlier in the day.

I had planned to see more sites. The poor weather and the time taken hunting the ones I didn't find put pay to those plans. Nevertheless I had a great day out and saw some stunning scenery, too.

On Thursday morning I woke up wanting to go to Boleycarrigeen (County Wicklow) stone circle, but didn't quite know why. I had a feeling that they were cutting the trees down around it and so had to go and check it out. When I got there I was amazed to see that they are indeed felling the trees that I have always walked through to reach the site. Unfortunately, they haven't got around to clearing the trees from around the circle, but the site is so much better with more light available. I'll go back soon to see if it's been cleared so that I can finally assess the views from this marvellous site.

While in the area I also took the opportunity to visit some nearby sites that I'd either never been to or had not quite managed to find. At one of them I met an archaeology student who had once very kindly emailed me with information about the site I met him at. Odd and weird synchronicities!!