Lockdown lunches

 

I have never really listened to lots of music. In the car and at home I like to listen to Radio 4 and I suppose if I'm at a loose end I'll crochet if I'm in the living room with anybody else or read if I'm by myself. I've always preferred words to anything else - I've enjoyed the first act of any ballets I've been to, but then I just get a bit hungry for dialogue! This time last year, however, we very quickly got into the habit of switching Radio 2 on when it was lunchtime in Home School! The first and the best online purchases I made in Lockdown were my little digital radio* and this chromebook*. The three men of the house had every device in full use, two of them with their own Google log-in for school email and Google Classroom, so I decided to spend my saved petrol money on some technology of my own!

In the first Lockdown we took lunch at 12.30 which was just after the start of the Jeremy Vine show - lots of upbeat music that would totally lift the mood. It's been a bit of a revelation to me how powerful music can be in changing the tone of the day. So at 12.45 this Lockdown I still switch the radio on and turn the volume up so that everybody knows they can step away from their keyboards and gather.

I keep thinking I should email the Jeremy Vine show and thank them all for the very real role they've had in encouraging us through all These Strange Times.* What we love about Vine is "The Rant of the Day". Maybe I've talked about this already? We tune in with glee to hear the day's topic and shout back at the radio. Interesting family perspectives come to light. I'm imagining that today will be all about Prince Harry and Meghan's interview, which aired for us last night. I am going to state categorical disagreement with the Ginge and Whinge brigade. Anyone who has watched appalled as The Crown pours contempt on the establishment's treatment of Margaret and Diana shouldn't walk into this greenhouse with stones. I think. They have said what they think. They have done what they thought best. And who out of any of us has made right decisions every time there has been a decision to make? And ultimately, who owns the truth?

Anyway, I know I'll miss these lunchtimes we've been given together as a family. This year has given me a whole year with two boys who have over the last twelve months become men. It's time for which I am very grateful*. And when my two fly this nest and make all sorts of decisions for themselves, I hope we'll always be able to gather round a table somewhere and eat together without too much bitterness or regret. That's what I hope for H&M (also a clothes shop... ) Especially given the situation with Prince Philip.

This was my reading this morning. I have been appalling at reading my Bible recently. So much for Lent. Isn't it wonderful that God still draws us near and shows us things*, even when we've been lying about all over the place, watching Netflix and eating rubbish? Obviously I'm speaking to myself here. But this passage has given me such hope today. I have been hiding myself away in the safe pasture of our meadowplace for a year, quite contentedly. So it is of great comfort to me to think that we will be shepherded out of our Lockdown, rather than herded, by a gentle God of great provision*. And wonders? Wouldn't it be a fabulous thing to see wonders On the Other Side? Even if we continue in a desert of trials.

Wonders.

edit: Let me apologise profusely. I see now that I blogged about our beloved Jeremy Vine on only 19th January. How repetitive. You see how small my world is now!

*879-884 out 1000 to be grateful for!

The beginning of the end

 Is there that feeling where you are? That we are still living the effects of the Pandemic, but change is coming quickly now? At the start of last week I was really quite sad. It marked one month until the boys and I will go back to school, and I imagine that this really will be the last school closure. Mattman will have left school by the autumn anyway, and I do hope that the vaccine* will preclude the awful pressures we've seen on hospitals even if there are more waves to come.

I can't pretend that we have had a difficult time with restrictions. We are all here together*, all well*, all with everything we need and more*. Caring responsibilities have kept PC and me in our respective parents' houses*, and the privilege of strong broadband* and many devices* has kept us in touch with work* and school* and friends *and church*. In fact we have been more in touch with some friends*, and able to make many new friends*.

So at the start of this week, one of only three Mondays left until we go back into the big, bad world, I am deliberately making myself savour the moments left to These Strange Times, and giving great thanks for the year that we have had here in a Meadowplace. And I suppose with the year's anniversary coming up for us around St Patrick's Day, I want to spend the remaining time reflecting on the value we found in our particular locked down lives.

While I'm here, there was no review of February books because I did not finish one single thing. That's appalling! But it was somehow like those first weeks of the first Lockdown where I couldn't settle my mind enough to concentrate on either reading or crochet, when it was so hard to sleep at night. Without being aware of anxiety during the day, there was a feeling of fragility to the days. That was before we settled into glorious days of unprecedented good weather,* with all the baking of sourdough* and the interesting dinners*, and the Lockdown birthdays that needed creative celebration*!

But over the last week I have been dipping in and out of this poetry collection. Longley is a contemporary of Heaney, and I was taught Eliot's Wasteland by his wife in my first year as an undergraduate. It's interesting to read his poetic descriptions of her when I remember a stately, bohemian, aristocratic English woman bemoaning the fact that we were studying Wasteland at the start of our literary studies (when by implication we knew nothing!) instead of as an accumulation of references at the end. She always seemed harrassed and nervous, and I think I blamed Longley when in fact she must just have been distressed at yet another lecture theatre of students who thought they already knew everything when in fact they knew naught!

Anyway, here's my current favourite Longley excerpt, from "Leaving Inishmore". It says something about what this year has been for me! (And MK, I'm claiming this as my poetry anthology!)

Summer and solstice as the seasons turn/Anchor our boat in a perfect standstill

Happy Monday, world. Happy last few weeks of Lockdown x

*Ages ago I thought I'd count Ann Voskamp's One Thousand Gratitudes and two years ago I got to 860. I really thought I'd got closer to the 1000 mark, but I can't find any more recent posts than this, so that's another example of my utter and characteristic lack of consistency! But with so much to be thankful for surely I can finally put this to bed?!! (878)

Happy Mole Day!

I had no idea that 23rd October was Mole Day, until last year. Hitherto I had presumed that moles were found in annoying mounds under your camp bed or somewhere on your person. Having been diplomatically advised against Chemistry as an O-Level choice however, I can still not give you a coherent explanation of this third type of mole. I understand only that it involves atoms and cake-baking competitions in school science departments! A key element (see what I did there?) seems to be remembering the cake-baking competition the night before.


This is one of the reasons why I'm struggling to offer up particularly heart-felt thanks this week. So, with a conscious effort and despite the fact that Jo only started baking (and decorating) his entry at 9pm last night, I am nonetheless grateful for two boys who show such enthusiasm for such things. Mattman came up with this year's idea on this very date last year when Jo didn't get ranked at all!


So, yes, I'm very glad for two boys who like school and moles and taking part enough to weigh and mix and wash and cut until really far too late into the night! I'm grateful for schools who still give our children opportunities to do things other than tests and assessments and target-setting. I'm grateful too for Prince Charming who, despite a ridiculously stressful day at work, could throw off that level of responsibility and get down on the floor with scissors and glue. And I am most extremely grateful, after all that effort and very sore feet at midnight, that the child did get joint second place. Thankfully plans for next year are already afoot/apaw, and thankfully we seem to have agreed that some forward thinking could be useful...


The rest is harder. I seem to have put my own paws into It. When I put my foot in It, It does usually happen for all the same reasons and It does usually come from all the same faults, but this doesn't ever appear to make me wiser or better or just quieter really. So, I am trying to be thankful for people, for opinions, for decisions made for all the right reasons. For faith and trust and the authority of good men.


I'm not succeeding at that level of gratitude though, if I'm honest. I am genuinely grateful for folk who have said nice things about me and made me feel better about myself, but that isn't necessarily where growth lies, is it? Back to the preceding paragraph then! Maybe I should try to be grateful for opportunities to do something different, a bit like the Mole in the Wall. Maybe I should be grateful for an opportunity to practise respect and tolerance and patience and submission. And be very, very grateful for a God in whom I can place my doubts and fears and know that He at least is smiling over me hard.

The Lord your God is with you,

    the Mighty Warrior who saves.

He will take great delight in you;

    in his love he will no longer rebuke you,

    but will rejoice over you with singing.”

Zephaniah 3:17 (918!)

Just because

 This week I'm thankful just because it's October really! It might actually be my favourite month. It's my favourite month this year anyway! These sunny days don't require suncream, and it's been a warm enough season thus far not to require expensive hours of central heating!

 And yes, the first pumpkin has been bought! This one will be carved but won't last well until Hallowe'en, so I'll get to carve what I want, as opposed to what they will want!  It's a nice dilemma to have- soup or pie? You American folk will have a much wider repertoire than me. What about muffins? Are pumpkin muffins a thing, and do you have a recipe? (I keep typing pumpking! That makes me smile.)

  I am very grateful too for the patience of my resident pumpking who has endured long walks with me over the weekend, and tonight. I am trying to walk off bouts of menopause. Fresh air and outside and moving are three wonderful things. Especially with crunchy leaves, long blue skies (yesterday) and the sharp shining moon (this evening).

Also, school is starting to settle down into a bit of a manageable groove. It has taken its time! But today both of my teaching sessions achieved everything I needed them to, one boy's constant friendliness shouted across the playground was, as it always is, a huge encouragement, and our (English) department has nearly reached the end of all our room changes, so there could soon be an end to packing boxes and dust, dust, dust!

Most importantly, there are only two school weeks left to half-term! Hoorah! (901- less than a hundred to go...)

Of mice and Mags

My best laid plans always come to naught; well, they just don't always work out as expected! So I seem to have missed yet another thankful Monday, and the much lauded child of last week has spent most of the intervening period confounding the medical profession! And us!!

So here are some autumnal moments from the weekend. A lazy ramble around the hill behind the Temple of the Winds. Very lovely, and a new-to-us play ground/grove that merges huge and fallen trees with polished tree sculptures, deliberately laid activities like see-saws and balancing bridges with mighty sprawls of branches to entangle and ensnare.

Did you know that Albert Camus told us that we could all get used to anything, even to living inside a tree trunk? I don't think he imagined the cosy, illustrated interiors talked about by MK recently: " J’ai souvent pensé alors que si l’on m’avait fait vivre dans un tronc d’arbre sec, sans autre occupation que de regarder la fleur du ciel au-dessus de ma tête, je m’y serais peu à peu habitué… on finissait par s’habituer à tout."

I've been reading l'Étranger for years now. Just over thirty, my goodness. With the Bible, let's be clear on that one, it never fails to speak to my life. Well, it reflects a lot about my life, I think. But then all literature is life, isn't it? That was my definition of literature when I was teaching. But what I think God gives us, in his literature, is more than just a reflection of how things are. There we find hope that, even if there are things we have to just get used to, like fainting in school lots or being the mother of children who always have something going on, even if there are callings that are constrictive and dry, "The precepts of the Lord are right, giving joy to the heart." Psalm 19.

So if I say that I am grateful for school nurses and bean bags in school libraries, for hospitals and doctors a short drive and no wait away, for jobs that allow a certain degree of tolerance, for bright autumn glorious days amid the dark wet ones, for dark wet autumn days where you furrow deep home, for fires and candles and lights and friends, for books- secular and divine, for friends who lend DVDs and won't lend you the Arial poems until you find the DVD, for a car to get about quickly and easily, for all things orange this month, for the promise of getting the pumpkin box out soon, for husbands who clean, and for outside outside outside, if I do all that I do believe I'm up to 880 gratitudes with only 120 to go before year's end. Phew! 

This is the year

This is it. This year I am going to get to 1000 gratitudes. Years after reading Ann Voskamp I am tying up this loose end. You're getting fourteen today and they're all about the boy who is fourteen today: my baby!

847. So glad we got you, Jo!
848. Grateful for your uninhibited, undeterred, unstoppable gift for life,
849. for that energy, that high octane, morning to night, sun-hot burning go!
850. Grateful for your faith that burns hot too,
851. and for the bravery that took you two miles down the road, and light years out of your sub-culture, on your summer team.
852. Amazed that, like your Old Testament name sake, you have been strong and very courageous so many, many times, but especially when a bad thing has come your way every single time Dad had to travel far away this year.
853. Thank you, protecting Lord, that your hand is on this boy and on his life, because if it's going to happen, it happens to this boy.
854. Deeply, viscerally grateful, that as your name implies, you have redeemed me so many times in so many ways.
855. Grateful for how you stand up to me and hold me to account.
856. Grateful that you are the king of the one-liner put-down and that you can cope in the jungle that is school.
857. Grateful that you can bake.
858. Grateful that you can drum. Grateful that you can drum loudly? Hmmm.
859. Grateful that at fourteen you're not embarrassed to hug your mum, in public, in front of friends. I will totally understand when you don't!
860. Grateful that you've made nice friends, and that you know you can fill the house with them. Hospitality is a sign of the Kingdom, and all that. But after a weekend of parties, cake and noise? Let's just get through the week.


Happy birthday, big baby boys everywhere!

Diamonds are forever

We've reached that point in August where the air has a crisp chill even on a sunny day and the local chestnut trees are sneaking in some orange leaves. Here in the normally Frozen North we've had a proper summer, a real scorching, sunny, hot and wonderful time, so I think we're not quite as bereft at the thought of a new season approaching as we usually are!

Even with huge breaks in blogging it's always wonderful to pop back in and see how rolled round we are in earth's diurnal course, with rocks and stones and, especially at this time, trees*.  Plus ça change... I was struck this week by a farcebook memory from years ago that I could have easily written this week!

So here's a rock from the diurnal course- a diamond no less. I was presented with this at the end of a prayer session that I had been doing at my church's Holiday Bible Club last Thursday. There was a distinctly Celtic theme, so we had been jigging away to the Corrs, with short bursts of prayer in between. I at least had great fun! And at the end a very small girl came up to me with a most serious expression and said quite pragmatically, "I want to give you a diamond." So she proceeded to reach deep into the pocket of her little handbag and did just that. I'm wearing it on my wrist right now.

I've been trying to read right through the Bible chronologically this year, and am lamentably behind, but recently there have been lots of Psalms interspersed with the David narrative as it unfolds. What has struck me most this week are the Psalms that very deliberately go through in detail the corporate chronology of what the Lord has done for us, with a view to passing it on to the next generation. I've been trying to think very deliberately about what the Lord has done for us here. Being given my second diamond in twenty one years is definitely on the list!

And if you fancy a wee bit of Irish jigging with bursts of prayer in between, what has the Lord done for you?

* "A Slumber did my Spirit Seal" by William Wordsworth

Thanksgiving (early)

My goodness, at the risk of boring you: look, it's me. AGAIN! I was thinking about Ann Voskamp the other day. It probably began with the thought of all the Christian books I never finish, hers included. This is not a criticism of the book, quite the opposite. I'll start a really good Christian book, get to the end of the first chapter and worthily think that I need to put what I've read into practice before I can read on. And that's it for another dusty addition to the unread pile.

Talking of dusty unread piles of books, I am worryingly behind on my Alphabet of Authors with an exciting dash to come before this year's end! I have, however, read some fabulous things. I digress.

Ann Voskamp. I loved reading her blog. It was one of the first blogs I followed. And for a while I did try to post on Mondays a list of things for which I was grateful that week and generally. I have just checked. I got to 834 out of the target 1000 on 1st July 2013. That's more than three years ago. I wonder can I get through 166 before this year's end...

835 Three years and three days ago I went back to work five days a week for the first time in six years. Working as a classroom assistant was supposed to be an experiment in getting back to full-time work, but 836 it has been an easy and very family-friendly post and I am still there.

837 Despite the stormy seas, or should I say skies, of Alan's aerospace company, he is also still there, and for that we are all most thankful.

838 In the last three years both boys have moved from Primary to Secondary school, the same one- for which I am very thankful! Not sure how much Jo likes being accosted all the time with people asking if he is Mattman's brother...

839 Mattman has had a difficult time with bullies, but continues to grow in resilience and confidence. We have recently been praying out of Daniel 3 that there will be no smell of fire on him, no scars seen or unseen.

840 My parents have moved from their top of the hill, snowed in twice a winter house to a seaside apartment at the bottom of the hill. 841 My mother continues to cope brilliantly and stoically with the aftermath of a severe stroke, and 842 my father is still well enough to ensure that they can continue living independantly.

843 My brother is an absolute star; without each other's support the care of our parents would be a more stressful thing.

844 We moved back to a Presbyterian church around three years ago after six years of Prince Charming leading worship in a local Anglican-Methodist united congregation. We have been welcomed and loved and gathered into a wonderful circle of friends and fellowship.

845 Jo has lots of his research done for his Albert Einstein presentation, and 846 we are getting to the end of a fortnight of horrendously hard homework deadlines. But now he needs the computer. 154 to go. Might need some of 2017 too!

Views from Easter

 And so Lent ended as the holidays began and it has all been most mellow and even very sunny these last two days. I'm quite sure I've never had a sunhat on in April before. A week ago we celebrated one whole year in the Meadowplace. I still can't quite celebrate it enough in my head. It was such a wondrous time; it is still such a wondrous place to be.

 The local churches put together an amazing programme of events throughout Holy Week. We watched The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe at a family movie night on Monday, and I cried in all the places I always cry (Aslan on the table, and Aslan roaring at the end). On Tuesday night there was a family walk through Christ's journey to the Cross. This was brilliant. The local curate guided us through a series of multi-sensory activities and the depth of worship was incredible- and that was just the children. Prince Charming, with "Joshua" the curate, re-enacting the crucifixion above.

 I properly finished Mum's Camellia. It's to be wide enough and long enough to cover all of her for sofa-snoozes, without being wide enough to tangle her all up. All that hair has now been cut off, I'm glad to say.

 We've been out and about in the sunny sun this week. Making fine use of our National Trust membership at the Argory and Castle Ward. Today we were with New Cousin Em, and very exciting that was too.

 The over-riding verse I had in the God-story that was the move to this house was Psalm 37:5 Depend on the Lord; trust in him, and he will take care of you. Even down to the magnolia tree in the front garden. That wasn't on my deepest wish list, but there it is all the same, along with everything else that was the desire of my heart- privacy, space, downstairs possibilities for Mum and Dad.

On the day when we heard that we had the house I floated around on the first real experience I had of knowing without a doubt that God loved me. He loved me. It's good to remember that every now and again. It's one of those lessons that I learn and then forget. He takes care of me. And you xx

Greatitudes 812 - 834

Well, there has been much lovely stuff in and around Strawberry Land lately. Passing wholly over the fact that the last week has been one of the hardest I've lived in a while, let's be concentrating on the good!

I threw myself a surprise Bean birthday* last week, but two crafty (in both senses of the word) friends knew too much and presents were brought. Nice!

We've harvested this year's first strawberries, and will have a bowl a day for the foreseeable future. Just add cream, or warm banana bread and ice-cream...

I'm very glad that my two big cool guys can still pitch in and have a bit of baking whilst nipping off to Minecraft or supersoak or do that Lego thing. Also glad that they will sit at the table and do some school work. I know you'll not approve of holiday school, but this is the summer between P6 and P7 and The Test looms!

Prince Charming's Christmas present is letting us eat and watch Wimbledon, very important with Murray playing his fourth round!

Love Dr Oetker, boys with an eye for icing, and having something nice in a tin. Do call round for a cuppa this week- we have something nice in a tin!

I have upgraded my phone. Touch technology, no less. Very scary. It's a Nokia Strawberry, in case you're wondering. It takes much better photos than my Nokia dinosaur, but you'll just have to take my word for that- I have no idea how to do anything with said photos yet. So you'll have to imagine a nice day at the beach on Saturday and a wonderful day at Summer Madness yesterday! Though I'm beginning to feel that a woman in her mid-forties really shouldn't be at Northern Ireland's premier Christian music festival. And she definitely shouldn't be having a go at the hip-hop workshop. No sirree. Maybe my thigh muscles will work tomorrow...

*When I met my crafting friends a few years ago, we used to survive life and hook in a nearby coffee shop called Coffee Bean Deli. (It's still there, and we still go sometimes- Merville Garden Village for those of you in the area!) For birthdays we would have Bean Birthdays- themed cakes, bunting, and little presents. More recently we seem to be more in each others' houses, but the term stuck!

Grateful? 799 - 811

So I had already clicked Shutdown with a shake of the head at the mere thought of gratitude. But I know in same head that gratitude is like worship (spot the worship leader's wife)- it's a sacrifice of praise, so here goes.

I am grateful that I have happy, healthy children, even if one of them came home from school sick today. No doubt directly linked to camping in heavy rain and winds on Friday night and then rushing home to your chum's birthday football party. Maternal sigh.

I am grateful that my children have a school and an education and so many things that we take wholly for granted. I am grateful for friends who listen nonetheless to my worries and wearinesses. Maternal sigh!

I am very grateful for the interesting, paid marking that I did this year- and I am most grateful that it is now finished!  I am grateful that we finally got around to booking a holiday, that is fast approaching. I am grateful that the end of term is also fast approaching for the boys, and that there will be a break from homeworks and uniforms and packed lunches and trips and getting out of bed in the morning! Maternal sigh.

I am grateful for campsites and swimming pools and climbing walls and the National Trust. I know that in my mother's day we were all sent out at dawn with a sandwich in our pocket and a lump of coal in our shoe and that we didn't come back before dusk. But some things are actually better nowadays! (And actually we weren't allowed past the line/crack in the concrete at the opening to our cul-de-sac, and my mother played host to the whole street so that she would always know where we were and who we were with in 1970s North Belfast!)

Thankful for my family, and not just my dad. Though he is a scream. Also a scream ( a very hilarious thing) are the whole G8 comes to Northern Ireland shenanigans. So. Much. Fun. It's like having the Olympics come to your local children's play park.

Grateful for my favourite of today's many quotes from His Address- which I'm quite sure was written by his crack team of speech-writers, and read straight from the auto-cue:

"The terms of peace may be negotiated by political leaders, but the fate of peace is up to all of us."

Brain befuddled thanks 788 - 798

I really am in a bit of a fuzzy groove this week. The marking is nearly finished- one and a half centres to go, and on track for a Thursday finale. But it's getting harder the closer to the end I get! I think I'm tired. Une nuit blanche will do that to the soul! (Word Reference's definition captures none of the magic of this phrase! Think of the two nights in House of Special Purpose instead!)

And on a completely irrelevant note, have you read House of Special Purpose? I liked it. I was recommending it to friends last week who are considering a cruise to St Petersburg. Oh the decadence of the retired!

Anyway. Befuddled. As a wise woman said to me today, it does feel like I've been marking half my life, and the strawberries are not entirely impressed. Normal service will be resumed soon, guys. And I've done an on-line grocery order, so tomorrow there will be food...

I spent one night at Brownie camp at the weekend. Heather Boss will have photos up on Hookery soon, if you'd care to take a peek. I suspect there may be evidence of me marking in my floppy hat. I fear there may be evidence of my marking in my floppy hat!

It is a wonderful thing that leaders are still prepared to take children away on trips. It is so very good for them. I am deeply grateful for all the fantastic, formative experiences I have had on residentials, and for the fact that my boys can still branch out and stay up all night and eat nonsense and fall in rivers. And have the time of their lives! That's what one of my boys did this weekend. The other one was hiking and canoeing and cycling with Dad. Dads are fantastic and formative also!

And so to bed. Three more days to go. And then there will be a competition!

Monday Thanks 763 - 787

I am very thankful for the fabulous weather we had last week. Lovely! It is today so dull that I have the lights on in the dining room to mark. Both my nice summer tops are now in the washing machine, ready to packed away for next May! Sandals are safe from wear and tear for another year! 

Speaking of marking, I am nearly half-way through, and feeling most relieved about that. Thank you for bloggistes' kind wishes x I am admittedly just over half way through my time to mark, so thank you for the impetus that working under pressure brings!

Thank you for the full house we had this whole weekend, and for all the hours we spent catching up with good folk. Thank you for food and wine and chocolate and all such delights. Thank you for princes who will go to the supermarket with child and bring back the goods.

Thank you indeed for children. Thank you for their health and vitality and creativity and fun. Thank you for their energy and inquisitiveness. I am sure that this pushing of the boundaries thing that we are struggling with just now is very normal and a sign of something constructive. Thank you for faith- being sure of what we hope for, and certain of what we do not see!

Thank you for the friends who help me to hold it all together. Who come down and sit beside me while I make the invites and send the email and create the facebook page! Who will drop everything and come to town with me just to keep me company in the buying of piano books! They know me so well! Thank you for groups of creative women who include me in their doings, and furnish me with things to look forward to- so thank you for Hookery's first birthday party on Wednesday, Book Club on Friday, and Creative Arts and Spirituality in September. I am blessed x

Idyllic II

or Reasons to be Thankful 705-762

 Thank you for Sandycove, a quiet and plush beach outside Dublin with two of my favourite quirky spots in Ireland- Joyce's Martello tower being the second. Forty Foot deserves a post all of its own, and yes, it is getting one!

 Thank you for beaches to play on and rocks to climb and walks to be had in the warm evening after a smooth drive down fast roads. Thank you for PC who just decided that we would go, that we would all go, and that we would all go for the whole weekend, and it just sort of happened and was just sort of perfect!

 Thank you for the sweeping beauty of coastline and waves and intrepid human spirit. thank you for people who swim in the sea, wetsuits or no! I so wanted to be one of them on Friday night!

 Thank you for unexpected and never quite believed fabulous weather, for blue skies and sun-drenched dusk. That's the top of the tower just to the right of the tree. I've still never made it inside, though I've read those opening pages of Ulysses three times now- once for every time I've tried to read the book- yes, a post coming on that too!

 Thank you for the National Museum- and for the fact that it's free to get in-  a frugal post coming up on Dublin too...- and for the novelty of getting off the Luas at the front gate! Thank you that we found both sites, and persuaded the strawberries inside them as well! Thank you for the heritage that is Ireland's, that Anglo-Irish mix. Is it a Chinese blessing or curse to live in interesting times?

Thank you for Molly Malone, and Trinity and Grafton Street and bikes and crowds and bustle and street performers and flower sellers and sun!

Oh thank you for two days of pure, unadulterated hot sun and blue skies and basking opportunities in St Stephen's Green. Thank you that we did think to buy suncream on the way down, and that we did pack sunhats- untouched in three years! If that was our Irish summer, thank you nonetheless!

 And the rugby- well, thanks for an interesting experience! I have now learnt all sorts of chants though the "Are you Clancy in disguise?" one seemed a bit unfair to Clancy (apparently a linesman who does occasional and ineffective stints as a referee) because even I could see how rubbish the referee games official was!

 Thank you for the hilarious crowds and the atmosphere and the craic! Thank you for the two hilarious Leinster supporters who talked to us all the way there on the bus. They were right to commiserate with us in advance!

 Thank you for dry weather all through the day, as that terrace would have been no fun with two strawberries under a deluge! Thank you for that blue sky into which the Stiletto in the Ghetto Spire of Dublin seems to disappear. Thank you for how long we all stood with chins in the air. I thought the Garda would come and move us on, as they did with the skateboarders!

 Thank you as always for Dublin Zoo. It's flat. No hill to climb- not that Belfast Zoo can do much about its mountain, I suppose! And it's gorgeous. And there are playparks and ice-cream kiosks and shady benches everywhere! And lots and lots of feeding sessions.

 But finding out that Africa Day was happening in the same place on the same day, well, that was a bonus. And that was interesting! So much celebration of diversity and community and identity. So much music and colour and kindness of strangers.

 I think there would be a lot to learn on the subject of kindness in the whole field of identity and culture and community and flags.

 And speaking of kindness, thank you for Ang of Tracing Rainbows. Thank you for her great concern, and kindness, and thoughtfulness, and sheer generosity. Their Great Stash really does have the perfect solution for every dilemma- even my virtual reading one! I can get further than the second page of The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry now. It really has been a time of unlikely pilgrimages for me over the last week or so. Thank you for that. Let's see where they go!