What we did last summer.

Hello! I have been away from this space for so long it does seem like a novelty to be blogging again. Thank you so much for those of you who popped in while I was away and encouraged me to get back! I can't tell you how much that means. The last few months have been very very busy but thank-fully the last couple of weeks of August signaled a long slow decent into a lovely summery laziness. But where did September come from - I can't believe it is nearly finished? The weather here has been so lovely it has been a little shocking to be plunged back into the Monday to Friday school routine and feeling the season turn away from the sun and into Autumn.

So, the big news is I finished and passed my degree with a respectable BSc 2:1 which is a higher second-class honours. I finished my last paper on the 31st May and didn't get the results till the 7th July and I can tell you, the waiting was excruciating! By the end I was crippled with compulsive email, Facebook and course site checking and updating, so the relief was palatable. It is indeed a pity that I did not finish my degree when I was 24 instead of 44 but there we are, I would not be the person I am now if not for the choices I made. Better late than ever eh? I am going up to Belfast in October for the degree ceremony and cannot wait to get all decked up in the cap and gown and be presented with my degree from the 'Graduate Presenter' and whoever else represents the Open University at these events. I know it is all rather silly but nevertheless I feel compelled to have my five minutes of swishing around like a proper academic and get my photo taken in a stupid hat. The kids are super exited about it especially as we will be staying in a hotel and seeing the Egyptian mummies at the Ulster Museum. I'm going to have a celebratory pint in The Crown. I think I have earned it.

So it is sad to say goodbye to the summer - but we did have fun. We...

Celebrated Aunty Momo's beautiful wedding. Congratulations M &S!!!xxx

Gave the kids their first festival experience at Vantastival 2016.

These guys below are the brilliant Candlelit Tales. This month, 28th & 29th  they are in the Stag's Head in Dublin (re)telling some of our classic Irish myths and legends for the Autumn with their own brand of charismatic delivery and musicianship

Vantastival was held at the gorgeous Beaulieu House and is a sweet little boutique festival which is very family orientated. We particularly loved all the kids events in the magical walled garden.

'Discovered' the stunning Lough Ramon, Co Cavan. There were no filters used on these photos, everything really was that colour on that perfect summers day.

At last we found ourselves on the Wild Atlantic Way in amazing Co Donegal. Now, in the past I have been guilty of completely ignoring this part of Ireland in favour of the more famous, perhaps more touristy spots like Galway and West Cork but as the late great Ian Bank's remarked in The Crow Road, "Sometimes things only come to you gradually." Inexplicably, the fates have conspired to raise Donegal from a dim consciousness of a remote unknown northernmost county that hangs off the edge of Northern Ireland into a gripping obsession. Donegal is really a state apart, it remains part of the historical and legendary province of Ulster but politically partitioned from the UK entity that is Northern Ireland and geographically detached from it's own political 'home' the Republic of Ireland. 

Unfortunately Donegal you are also the home of the national embarrassment and country music treasure that is Daniel O'Donnell! Daniel is, I would admit is a somewhat unique performer who appeals to a very particular demographic and was celebrated for hosting an annual massive tea party for all his fans at his Co Donegal home. His relationship with his fans was brilliantly and hilariously parodied in the sublime Father Ted episode, The Night of the Nearly Dead.  Donegal was just not that appealing. Anyway, I digress, however for almost a year, for some reason this place has been following me around, friends have been sharing pictures of glorious deserted beaches all over social media all in Donegal, By accident, I stumbled across Sharon Blackie's beautiful writing especially 'Falling into the land's dreaming'. In between all that the news was full of  the next Star Wars being filmed on Malin Head, the highest point of Ireland and Charles and Camilla popped over for the weekend.

Then, I was researching material for a short story idea and wikied up the gorgeous Glebe House, home of the celebrated English artist Derek Hill (who also tutored Prince Charles) and just in time for my birthday I heard Maggie O'Farrell talking about her inspirations for her latest book 'This must be the Place' and that was it! Of course we just had to go exploring. It was too spooky not too! Here is a smallish (self-indulgent) snapshot of what we found there:

Narin Beach.

I could live here.

Glenveagh National Park:

Glebe House

Wee Library at Glebe House. This place is one of the must see places in the county for art lovers, interior designers/historians and people who just love atmospheric houses. The website does give a good flavour of the riches contained in the house. E who appointed herself camera woman for the day was given special permission to take some photos of the interior -usually completely and utterly forbidden-but was so over-awed by the whole experience she did take a single frame! (Much to my chagrin.)

Slieve League Cliffs

Foothills of Slieve League.

Have you ever been to a place for the first time and it has felt like coming home? This is what this holiday felt like. Maybe it has something to do with those soft Northern accents, maybe something about the quiet friendliness and easy hospitality of the people. I don't know but I hope that I will be back very soon. I have a hopeful plan. To this end you can now find me on Instagram @linnetinoriel and chuckle at my amateurish attempts to get to grips with that platform.

Thanks for staying with me till the end, I hope I shall be back here very soon too. Take care and have a great week. xxx

To Loughcrew and Lloyds Spire.

Last weekend was the last Saturday before the kiddos went back to school. (They went off this morning and the house is so quiet and mysteriously tidy!) So as the weather forecast predicted sunshine in the morning and persistent rain for the rest of the weekend - it was time to take advantage of the promised dry spell, dust the trusty thermos off, pack everyone into the car and set off for the day to explore somewhere we have never been before.

I have been wanting to visit Loughcrew for a long time now, not only are you promised a beautiful magical garden to wander around but nearby there are some of the most stunning megalithic passage graves in all of Ireland. In the gardens there is a zip-line and a climbing tree for those of us who like being suspended a long way above the comfort of terra firma on a rope. I packed my kindle and some crochet as there is also a coffee shop where I could happily dog-sit while the rest of the party could investigate the activities of the adventure centre.

Despite scorn for our choice of music from the little ones in the back seat, getting completely  lost twice and meeting a oncoming idiot driver, hurtling murderously down the middle of a twisty country road, we arrived at Loughcrew in very good spirits and were delighted with what we found. Our spirits had been greatly restored by he short drive to Loughcrew from the pretty town of Kells , the car climbing to an elevated plateau, dissecting a glorious panorama of  countryside, a vast quilt of green fields and tumbling grey and white dry stone walls. We had asked directions from the happiest lady in the land, cheerfully mowing her immaculate green baize lawn craved out of the side of a rocky mountain and found her mood contagious.

First place to explore was the atmospheric family church of St. Oliver Plunket. Man, there is nothing I like more than wandering around ruined churches and graveyards, I find the atmosphere so calm and peacefully contemplative. I love trying to decipher all the inscriptions and dreaming of all the people who lived once and are now resting here. The rest of the family don't share this attraction and are happy to scamper through and quickly on but I lingered and was delighted to be accompanied by a little wren as I wandered.

The gardens of Loughcrew House are a very atmospheric remnant of a now-lost 16th century house, it is one of those places that I can imagine full of shivery shadows after dusk. To walk in the company of such venerable yews was a privilege and the Alice-in-wonderland sculptures were charming. The highlight of the kids trip though was seeing their Dad ascending the climbing tree and the Hen Party falling in the lake.

 

 

 

I have one teeny criticism though, the promised 4k Lake walk is quite hard to access, the directions are confusing. we did attempt to follow the red arrows but there was a wire fence running through the apparent access points. We could have walked back to the coffee shop to ask the very friendly and accommodating staff but the heavens decided to open and we decided scurry back to the car and  make for home. Disappointingly this meant that we did not get to visit the Cairns this time but I'm sure we will be back this way very soon.

 

On the drive in, as we were leaving Kells,  we had passed an intriguing sign for The Spire of Lloyd, pointing to a structure that looked suspiciously like a lighthouse. Given that Kells is fairly inland, Lloyd and his spire seemed fairly extraneous! This seemed like one of those potentially exciting places that all too often is ignored as we drive on to another destination. So weather allowing I was determined to check this place out and having driven away from the rain we called in and well gosh it was worth it. So first we had to stop for a swing at the playground in the community park, then down through the fields to look for the Ring fort and back up to admire the view from the spire.

 

 

The spire is indeed a lighthouse and was built by the first Earl of Bective as a memorial to his father, Sir Thomas Taylor. The folly is also said to have been built as a comfortable viewing platform from which the Headfort family could enjoy the course of the hunt. This impressive symbol of 18th century wealth and landownership sits in poignant proximity to a one of the bleakest and most moving features of the Irish landscape, a famine graveyard.

 

 

The Great Famine, An Gorta Mor, 1845-1852 was a catastrophic failure of both the potato crop and that of the structural forces present in Irish society that saw over a third of the population, the landless labour class exist in abject poverty dependant on a one crop subsistence farming and the vagrancies and often brutality of the absentee Landlord class. Over a million people died of starvation in these years and a further million emigrated, leaving a scar on the cultural and demographic nature of the country that has yet to fade completely from our psyche. How fleeting our lives can be, potentially we are all migrants from poverty and conflict.

 

As the clouds darkened and the rain swept over this place, we thought of all those nameless people buried here in a pauper's grave without individual marker.

 

A contemplative end to a great day out. Thank-you so much for reading and have a great weekend with those you love. xxx

 

As part of Heritage week, both Loughcrew Gardens and Lloyds Spire are open to the public this weekend and are free of charge. The lighthouse is open for viewings on Sunday 30th August.

 

Between the showers.

Hello! Welcome back to Oriel. How is your summer going? Ours has been a tad miserable to say the least. I guess we should have known, toying with The Weather Gods in such a cavalier fashion. So since our purchase of some garden furniture at the end of May in a joyous burst of enthusiasm for the hot promise of a Summer, any Summer, we have used the set approximately twice and the view to the garden looks mostly like this. Sodden. Abandoned.

Met Eireann, the Irish Meteorological service has been monotonously persistent with it's daily depressing forecast of 'thundery rain moving east'; this has been the worst summer since I moved to Co. Louth and that year it rained for a biblical forty days! Nevertheless, we have been trying to make the best of it, embracing the excuse to catch up on our favourite house pursuits, crafting, baking, reading, colouring and watching as many films as can be squeezed into a rainy afternoon. I am making steady progress with O's Autumn Sunburst blanket and Rosie likes it too.

She is a very crafty dog as you can see, these are a pair of PJ bottoms that I made for E from the fabric I bought up in Belfast and blogged about here. I followed this brilliant tutorial from the completely marvellous Countryside Tales blog and managed to run them up in about three hours!

 

The sun did make an appearance briefly and conveniently for a little photo-shoot. I miss you Sunshine.

 



E is delighted with them and I cannot wait to make some for myself as soon as a little bit of fabric cash manages to settle in my purse. When we were in London, I couldn't help noticing that those colouring book for adults were all over the place, despite being an avid colour-in-er in my youth, I didn't really 'get' the concept at the time but of course now that we are At Home, they seem like such a good idea and not just for the grown ups either. I love the intricate detail of the Secret Garden one but thank-fully for our diminishing summer budget, you can print out some free sheets from Red Ted Art and I just love how the kids approach the same picture in their own unique way. Sadly no pics of our art, it is just too feckin' grey for photography.

Play-doh is another 'old' toy that is also making quite a come back in our house, of-course we had to try the allegedly fabulous no-cook make-your-own recipe but oh my goodness letting two over-enthusiastic kids loose with bright red food colouring is not for the faint hearted. My lovely old farmhouse table is now covered in great globular red stains which no amount of elbow grease can shift AND the resulting 'playdoh' was deemed Far Too Yucky and promptly discarded and Mr S cajoled into buying some real stuff from the big supermarket.

Some days, it has been too wet for some people to even get dressed and Baking in Onesies and Licking Bowls in Pyjamas has become quite a weekly event. I don't think Mary Berry would approve.

Mr S has been getting all creative too.

 

Can you guess what it is yet?

 No?

Mr S is attempting some serious pallet reconstruction. Hopefully, I will be able to reveal the result of his endeavours before next summer...! Bye for now. xxxxx

London snapshots.

 

Old Spitalfields Market.

 

Kew

 

 

Hampton Court

 

We went to London and for the first time in a long time we became tourists in our former home city. All around the heat shimmered and we moved in a determined slow motion, there was a tube strike and we were disorientated and amateurish when trying to navigate our way around the cashless oyster card system. We glimpsed new tube stations, great soaring apartment buildings - too ubiquitous to become landmarks - new pathways and directions -my previously sharp London map slowly remembered and eventually restored. We checked off some places that we had never been and places half-remembered since childhood - the maze at Hampton Court has drastically shrunk!

I saw the ghosts of lost friends in many faces and felt 21 again as we danced, reunited with some old ones. We celebrated with our growing extended family, precious new-born babies and beautiful bumps. I marvelled at the shift in our parental journey, it seems like minutes since we were the distracted parents of small infants and focused on the mindful vigilance that accompanies the fast-moving toddler. In the face of the mighty force that is Grandma, myself and Mr S became slightly redundant, some unusual hours of child-free time opening. We had enormous fun but I got my cure , it was probably no accident that I bought this book. (The background is a 1970's shopping bag that had to be bought in no small degree because of the texture and the smell! It takes me back to a hot 1970's summer, my wee pram with a similar plastic cover.)

I went clothes shopping on a Saturday morning, all the shops packed with people, sales stock strewn into a bemusing mass, stale air-conditioning in the giant shopping centre. I wanted to give up almost immediately, forget about the new shoes and join the kids in the park. The old seduction of London  was still strong, the brisk efficient mass of commuters, the endless number of undiscovered streets; the potential for people watching, the stories writing themselves as the actors in each tube carriage  shifted, emptied and refilled. The teenagers kissing at Harrow-on-the-Hill, the old Punks with chiselled features at The Angel, the beautiful twins with immaculate hair and light graceful dresses at London Bridge, a vivid 1960's painting for a dream house in Old Street. A lovely exhausting time but an interlude, I missed my space. We went for a lazy pub lunch in the pretty village of Sarratt, strolled part of the Chiltern Way and it was here that I felt most still and content. I saw the sky and the distant fields, and breathed out.

 

A most fortunate rabbit.

 

Sarratt Bottom. Address envy. xxx