The Phoenix Vegetarian Restaurant & Accommodation

13/11/2025

Our dog Ellie passed. She was 18 & she could still catch a snack midair.
she was loved by all often ending up in our guest bedrooms. Her terrier eyes glaring definitely at me The customer is always right. Her philosophy was curiosity so when door opens get through it, closed doors challenged her but she had an Open Sesame visualisation technique & by persistent scratching she moved doors with incremental shoves or someone did the deed for her. Broken cat flaps were an asset & in her younger days she would jump straight through an open window. If you mentioned Beach, Shopping, Foleys there she was poised at the car ready to go.
She loved a cat chase & in the past, if Ellie was heard barking under a tree you'd know there would be a cat balancing on a branch needing rescue
Once she suffered a phantom pregnancy & breastfeed litters of kittens to the embarrassment of the teenagers. Farewell trips to kerry airport were her speciality. The kids would sneak her inside & she would teeter about like a dignitary getting pats & ahhs carefully avoiding me, the enemy as i would be obliged to banish her to the car.
Omnipresent described her well, although she became invisible at the mention of bath, medicine or grooming, words she could even spell. Has anyone seen Ellie? No-one had & by the time you did she had put you under a Forgetting Spell.
She was a scruffball sort of a dog with a burr filled lions mane in winter, a natural healer. She hated being referred to as a dog. The day she died she walked up the mountain with Kim & Rufus, Ouma cooked her a chicken & She spent a lot of time with Snowy our ancient cat terrorising the wily stray cat who is regular visitor.
She escaped during the night & was found by our caring neighbours by the bridge. We imagine she chased the stray. She was unscathed. We laid her by our cooker lit a candle, drank tea, coffee, ate toast, gently her presence filled the house with a pulsating vibrant energy. When the rain stopped, we buried her by the standing stone next to the pond in the garden she loved

10/11/2025

A note on spontaneous action. Yesterday my hubby and I went for a walk on Inch as we parked our camper there was a Sauna in front of us. Not a mirage on a misty November evening there it was. Hey can we book it. Yep and after a deliciously bracing walk we sat and watched the dusk draw in roasting and sweating and of course alternating in the frothy tide which was so exhilerating in the new Inch beach Sauna.
Thanks Shauna for being there

10/11/2025

Wow ten years ago this is cookery events and classes I was participating in. I loved it. The sheer joy and creativity involved carried me through long working hours. I dreamt food up, literally imagining dishes throughout the day and night. A glut of beetroot a row of bright shiny chard young fluorescent green vine leaves would dance through my very veins along with the early summer sun wake up and turn us into...food magic My glass house full of herbs were my shining aromatic best friends. Oh the pesto sweetened with abundant fennel fronds, creamy with chives, tart with early fennel, deeply pungent with pre flowering sage and later omega rich with evening primrose, nasturtium or calendula flowers. Healing tasty soul food dotted with bright puple borage or sparkly white pansy. What do I miss now? People ask. HmmNothing actually, I still do it for friends and family, I even cook for my ancient pets well they eat what we eat. Now though I dance, I learn tunes on my whistle, I travel, do yoga, read forever in bed with cats and dogs lounging around my feet. I visit my kids and kids kids, i think about writing a book, and poetry, I stare at a coastline for days, feel my trees and i hug any tree I feel like in beautiful parks or forestry walks, i swim in silky lakes and fast rivers and enjoy the bite of cold salty waters. I linger in cafes and eateries. I take trains and go to concerts and say yes because I really want to and no when I fecking don't. I study this and that with no super gotta perfect it concentration and mostly love my life. No I don't miss IT because I just keep rolling along in essence still doing it all but the quantities and qualities have changed,the Method is new. Breath deep while you sleep. Breath Deep

06/11/2025

Mum and me go back a long time.
Here she is on the Island beach she grew up on.
She loves dancing and theatre and poetry and cooking, music, friends and life. She turned 90 in September and i turned 70. My youngest boy is 30 and my eldest girl is 50. It's one of those magical years. I am a mum of 6 kids and she a mum of 3. Between us we have a cute tribe.
Just recently we went on holiday together to that very same beach, the beach i learnt to swim on too.
We hung out with mums funky cousin Stevie, his lovely wife Annie. We met old friends and mum gave an interview for a project being created for Carisbrooke Castle, which was very moving.
There is so much to say so many facets to a life that has experienced so many years.
Mum is giving a care home a trial run.
It was hard to dress her room with articles and ornaments from her own home. This picture, that bowl. Shelves and tittle convince tables, let alone the right clothes. Accessories makeup and all those bits and bobs. If I lived in the same country, town, street it would all be easier.
However we are waiting now, my brother and I. She likes it but will she stay there?
She misses her freedom and her ample supply of freshly cooked vegetables. She said the other day I mean how hard is to steam a bit of cabbage? She misses being able to play piano and make a coffee in her own kitchen accompanied by her morning sourdough toast drizzled with olive oil. You know... You just know it's all the little things that are infact the big things. And I do have to ask myself whilst convincing her that she is in the best and safest place; How would I feel?

06/11/2025

We are letting rooms with use of our vegetarian community kitchen and beautiful lounge.
We often host music events cookery classes and even music classes. Our rooms are ensuite andwe are considering longer term let's for people working in the area.
Contact lorna on 083 869 1722
Billy Tyther kim Tyther or Kyle Tyther for more information

28/10/2025

26/10/2025

On this day
On arrival in Dungarvin
From rainbow clad Wales
With my Grandfather's chair
Strapped tight to our bicycle rack
Causing smiles at customs
I cooked a risotto
Of brown rice(soaked overnight)
With layered
Garlic, carrots, blackbeans,
Phoenix pumkin (well travelled)
Shaking cupboard spices(numerous)
In our pressure cooker
For just 20 minutes
Rested it during a drive to Cork city
Eaten at St. Lukes church yard
Waiting for
Carlos Numez
Cork jazz festival begins
Here
Yippeee

29/09/2025

Thank-you dear family and friends for the most amazing party

27/09/2025

I was born in Lincolnshire, in a forest
My dad worked in the woods every day. He was a street wise Londoner and had been destined to work in the City which he rejected for a sort of Robin Hood like existence, not quite in Nottingham forest but close enough.
My mum was a beach beauty, and was from the sunny IOW. A figure skater, star swimmer, a rower and fearless of the short sharp salty waves of Ventnor beach where she tumbled in the smooth sandy shingles that were as golden as her summery tan.She captured the muscular hearts of the throbbing long shore men who only wished they could match her galloping crawl her pounding butterfly stroke or join her in the distant depths where she dived from secret rocks only exposed in the lowest tides.
They wished they could rescue her too from the ginger haired London lad, a thoughtful talented man strangely working as a brickie whom she had met in the Winter Gardens swirling August dance nights where they danced their nights away
Marry me he begged.
Yes said she and a year later I was born.