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!

Idyllic I

Prince Charming took us all to Dublin this weekend. It was idyllic (apart from the rugby result) and the weather was tropical (unbelievably) and I will be rambling on and on about it all week. This is nonetheless Ireland and a roaring fire is always what you need at the end of any idyllic day, especially if it's in the library nook of The Red Cow, and you have both Guinness and Irish coffee to hand.

Jo was the first to investigate the bookshelves and then we were all at it. PC found French reformed theology, and I found The White Company by A Conan Doyle. I'm presuming the hotel bought some job lot of books just to add atmosphere, and so who knows what journeys the books have been on? This one was at some point being read on a tram in Southampton. The book mark is a ticket that cost 2 1/2d. I wonder did the reader ever get to the end of the book before the end of his journey, real or metaphorical? 'Twould appear not. I read on a little bit- if we all go and read on a little bit more, the ticket might find out what happens in the end...

"Whipping up the little woman, he lifted her lightly to his lips..." Great line. On the way home tonight I was reading an interview in yesterday's Irish Times with Jilly Cooper- on "bonkbusters" and Fifty Shades of the Death of Feminism. I like A Conan Doyle's style better!

For the snail lovers of Blogville- to the best of my knowledge no snails were harmed, or eaten, in the racing event of Their School on Friday. All snails seem to have been sent home with their owners. Ours were released into the wild of the playground, under a nice big shady tree, because there was no way on this snaily planet that they were coming to Dublin with me!

Testing, testing

We have selective secondary education here in the Frozen North (and just when will Spring be sprung, anyway?) which means that just now our super Mattman is head down for major preparation works that will last until the last of three Tests in November and December. So we're all battening down the hatches, and life is busy!

We remain very grateful for the very lovely Mr Knight, who has staved off the worst of the pre-selection Grande Panique by simply maintaining that there is more to life in school than testing. This is very good for our souls!

In Googling images of tests I laughed when I found the BBC test card. I am old enough to remember it well, or so I thought. When I gave it some thought, I remembered seeing it in the evening, but was it also there during the day? And my goodness, I so well remember the girl who looked fascinatingly like my Tracy Tea-Party doll with moving arm for pouring tea. But I did not remember the clown. My children are afraid of clowns. Why was there a frightening clown and why do I not remember him?

I live in the hope that, like my clown, even these Testing months will recede from Mattman's memory of P6 and leave Mr Knight's bright pink guitar strap, the wacky flower homework, and the day that Andrew Trimble did their spellings test.

Letters to PC II

 

Dear Prince Charming,

 

I am very glad that you are home. I know it was only for one night, and that you were technically still in the country, but that little old Irish Sea makes such a difference somehow.  Thank you for carving my pumpkin before you left. Everyone at Book Club was very impressed with its welcome at the door. And I was very impressed that you got not only the number but also the window from the title.  Also quite impressed that Ulster won. Must be the icing on the rugby trip away cake.

It was good that we had Book Club, I think. It kept us all busy. You would have been very proud of your boys, who opened the door for arriving folk, and helped serve food, and amused themselves manfully, and went to bed eventually with not (very) much protest.  It was a great night at Book Club.  Not everyone had hated the book, always a worry when you've chosen it!  It maybe wasn't everyone's cup of tea/coffee/hot water/sugar free lemon and lime stuff, but it did remind me of all those innocent abroad journey books I read at university, and there's such licence to mock all, and indeed all the century, therein.  We hadn't all thought it was a hilarious satire also on the Larsson genre of horrific violence in Nordic countries, but we had all loved the bit where the elephant sat down.

 

Anyway, you're back in the Land where all is golden and good, and that makes everything all right. There's such a hole in the whole when one is missing.  It makes me wonder at my beautifully justified jaunts away.  Not that getting away from it all is bad. Just that with you is better than not. I am very glad that you are home x

What if...

"What if Ulster don't win?" Matthew has just asked. Luckily his father had just left the house, taking one of our three lovely American guests up to church to join the rest of the team. It's all go in Strawberry Land today.

(Don't watch beyond the Thunderbirds music. Only the die-hards watch Schools Cup stuff!)

Greatitudes 528 - 541

I haven't been grateful in a while, and this is not necessarily confined to blog posts. Mostly today I'm grateful that I wasn't doing the Belfast Marathon in any shape or form, and certainly not in the torrential rain that persisted right up until the last possible person was through the tape. When the sun came out.
But G and G walked the whole thing in seven hours, Fred ran the whole thing in four hours and thirty-four minutes and the Library Crew walked the nine miles without incident, so well done, all of you!
Obviously the biggest thing in my universe of late is still last week's Annual Big Night Out. And most thankful for it I am too- for the friends who come every year, for the hamper we manage to win every year (two at the table this time round!), for the teacher who turned out actually to just want to chat and dance and did not, as I in great paranoia feared, "want to "talk" to you in a minute"... Notice that I remained perfectly upright on the heels at all times! (And that it made no difference whatsoever in the neverending quest to look PC in the eye!) Also thanks Mrs Clarke, because we managed to get a table one row in from the back door this time!
Admittedly the atmosphere was enhanced this year by the fact that the Ball was preceded, for the male population mostly, by an afternoon in the hotel bar, in full tuxedo gear. Thankfully they won!
The Morning after the Night Before has traditionally become a baking time. Thankfully this year Jo took charge of that. We might still have half a carriage in a tin somewhere if you're hungry?

This Bank Holiday weekend is always Belfast's Festival of Fools. We've been taking the suns to sit on various city streets since they were tiny fireballs. My favourite yesterday was Il Cataldo. This isn't Belfast- no green trees of City Hall in the background!

And lastly tonight, in a bad case of Sunday blues on a Monday, I'm very graetful for Ann Voskamp's post on mothers over at aholyexperience.com and yes, it has made me cry- this is the Land of the sometimes tearful Strawberries, you know?

Happy St Patrick's Day Part 2

Oh all right then! Well done, England! And thank you, Betty for this fabulous leprechaun! I love him! Most gracious of you, given our Six Nations defeat of this evening!

And thank you, Lisa, for the fabulous ancient swamp willow with happy boys! I love it! Today they didn't enjoy quite the nice weather that you give them!

All started sunnily enough- for a picnic with Nedboy and co at Navan Fort. Here in days gone by the warriers of Ireland met and feasted, and Cuchulainn became the Hound of Ulster, and Macha cursed the men of Ulster. All good grim stuff! This morning we just had to contend with the Willows feasting on our quiche, as real warriers do, apparently, eat quiche.

On we continued to Armagh: city of Saints and Scholars, Ard Macha after she of the chariot race and the twins and the curse. Also, as the sign says, a town of opposites. Aren't we cheerful in the rain? Mattman is licking it, and I don't know what Cooking Catherine is doing with it.

Here comes St Patrick leading his parade. Behind him his modern day successors- both Archbishops uniting opposites at the front of the procession. This did nearly make up for the irony of us all being held back by orange rope (the parade had been re-routed because of a bomb scare further down in the town)!

Happy, bouncy leprechaun, and then lots and lots of animals, which must have been this year's theme. I think they had heard that the Willows would be there! The boys were, however, safely out of the elements, for fear that more of poor Mole's ink would run!



This is St Patrick driving the snakes out of Ireland. Our book says that he drove out the snakes as he had driven out sin. Well. I wish he had driven out Macha when he was about it- here she is screaming fury at us all! I unfortunately took her photo just as she caught my eye- and now she has me cursed along with the men of Ulster! Suggestions for avoiding disaster in the comment box below, please- we don't need any more lachrymose! Angela and Betty- I shall be posting the boys out of harm's way this week!

Happy St Patrick's Day Part 1

More later from the Willows and from us all, but for the monent- COME ON, IRELAND! (I taught him, you know!)