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the changing seasons

The changing seasons... A homage to Autumn and to new beginnings....








A time of change and celebration, marked by the opening of the big cheese... Yum!

Megalitic Meath

Megalithic Co. Meath, of ancient passage tombs and celtic ruins...
Up we got bright and early one morning to set out and see Loughcrew Cairns, one of several ancient passage tombs in neighbouring Co. Meath...
Apparantly (according to guidebooks, official internet site a recent newspaper article) one could collect a key from the cafe in nearby gardens to open the tomb and take a look ... and as we thought that sounded like the neatest thing.... to arrange our own private viewing of one of these tombs, out of season.... off we went in seach of the gardens, the cafe, the key and the cairns. But, sadly, it was not to be.... the gardens and cafe were not open and we were failed yet again by a non functioning Irish system. oh well.... we still went up and had a look from the outside and it was still a very beautiful thing (~5000 years old) and a great place to wonder around and have our picnic.
However, the darkness, rain and clouds soon came, it was still beautiful......but now it was ab-so-lu-te-ly freezing. After rambling around and admiring the view, we abandoned the picnic idea and had a cosy and yummy warm lunch in a beautiful nearby town called OldCastle...

On the way home we thought we would check out famous Hill of Tara... (seen here from the sky) ...although the visitor centre was closed for the day (we arrived there quite late in the day), we wondered around there too... The Hill of Tara is thought to be the ancient seat of the High Kings of Ireland.. The area includes several sites/artefacts including the Stone of destiny (pictured) which (according to legend) when touched by the High King would let out a scream which could be heard throughout Ireland, and something called the Mound of the Hostages, (pictured) which was used as a burial chamber (from Neolithic times to ~1600 BCE) and is thought that up to 500 bodies are buried here. (cremated)..









The mound and passage are aligned so that during the Spring and Autumn equinoxes, the sun shines down the passage, illuminating the chamber -like something out of Indiana Jones. And..the similarities do not end there! This place is shrouded in mysticism and I have just learnt (from Wiki) that The Hill of Tara was at one stage thought by some to hold the Ark of the Covevant itself!! Very Indi indeed! There are countless of loopy people creating their own websites about the mystical significance of these sights, and I've just seen one that claims that new research suggests that the Hill of Tara could be the capital of the 'lost kingdom of Atlantis' no less.
More grounded but still fascinating info on the Hill of Tara here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hill_of_Tara.
Anyway, we will have to come back for a proper look at these things, but we have enjoyed our glimpses so far...
Other passage tombs around include the famous Newgrange which is aligned to light up during the winter soltice... Though this would be great to see, visits to Newgrange at this special time are usually organised as a 'lottery' or lucky dip. If your lucky enough to have your name pulled out of the hat, you can experience the real thing... However, if you're not so lucky, you can still experience the 'simulated' passage lighting that is organised each and every day at Newgrange.
Sadly and quite comically, even if you are lucky enough to be chosen to experience the real solstice at Newgrange, the Irish skies could let you down, it could easily be overcast, giving the sun no chance to shine through this great passageway... How infuriating for the poor neolithic people of Newgrange, to experience nothing after waiting for the longest night of the year to end and to experience this annual great moment! Poor things. Newgrange is still on our list to see....

random ramblings...and a touch of halloween

Hi out there...

Just a quick post to say we haven't fallen off the face off the earth or anything.... just that we haven't been quite bothered enough to make a proper blog post in recent weeks.

We have gone through Halloween- with shops filling up with scary and sweet halloween 'stuff' a whole month before Halloween itself, and some quite scary looking shop windows... every shop in Dublin, including op shops and butchers had skeletons, zombies, cobwebs and bloodied bandages as decorations.. I might have a few snaps of some shop windows.... These are not so good, but i don't always have the camera on me...The best one i saw was the op shop just around the corner...very spooky, but, sadly, I missed my chance at the photo...

We learnt something too - that Halloween is a Celtic tradition, a celebration of the 'end of summer', when the dead revisit the mortal world, walking free amongst the living. The Celts hung up skeletons to represent loved ones who had passed away. It was also believed neccessary to dress up as underworld creatures before stepping out for the night, so as to blend in with the real spooks..... and the bonfires were to either keep the returned spirits warm or ward off evil spirits... or both.... (Reference: wikipedia) More fascinating info here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halloween#Ireland
It's always nice to learnt something new...

But.... Halloween night here with its random fireworks and bonfires does seem to get a little out of hand... The news report form the morning after gives some idea...
http://www.rte.ie/news/2008/1101/halloween.html

Despite all this, it does also seem like good fun, so next year we'll be more organised, get a costume and get to one of the pub parties.. This Halloween we had more mundane things to do like pick up Ivan from the airport after a short visit to London. But next year! oh next year!!

Now Halloween is over and Christmas is fast approaching......

Paris weekend: cest manifique!

Paris! How lovely, how grand, how majestic! How vast and how exhausting! So much to see, so much to eat and so little time! a mere 3 days..... We walked by the Seine, and around the city.. we hit the sites.. the Louvre (admired from outside), the Eiffel Tower, Notre Dame, Monmatre and Sacre Coeur, the latin quarter... we walked and walked and metroed all day long. We ate crepes, brioche, croissants, salade nicoise, pomme frites, tarts and even french onion soup..
We saw many people walking around with baguettes, fresh from the bakery - albeit without the stripy top and beret.. The Parisians patiently listened to our horrendous french and smiled when Ivan greeted them with "Au Revoir"! (its funny cos its true) .. We wandered around in the evening, when Paris lit itself up and when the Eiffel Tower sparkled. (as above). We rode the metro confidently, tunnelled our way through the city as if we were locals.... except for the relentless map checking and popping up completely disoriented in random plazas and large roundabouts, no one would have known. We sat in cafes and rested our limbs, drank chocolat chaud (as it was very very cold), ate the tart of the day and watched the world go by. One of the best experiences would have to be the Artist's market we went to... with great art, jewellery and curious crafts. After 3 days, happy and exhausted, we carefully packed the few objects d'art we bought at the market into our small 10kg limit cabin luggage for the cheap Ryan Air flight back to Dublin, from some little known Airport 80 km away from Paris central.

L-R The Seine, at the Louvre, shadow puppets and big polar bear at Musee D'Orsay

...Paris Metro, Sacre Coeur, Eiffel Tower: Looking very tall!

The CLT experience

In September we were visited by Craig and Linda and our first nappy wearing guest – Thomas. There was an incredible amount of eating, quite a lot of driving and numerous nappy changes all over central and western Ireland. The first day was a relaxed trip, afternoon start, to Dublin city wandering about the shops and sampling ‘Strawberry fields’. Craig went shopping for a new look resulting in the photo below. We are still looking for a title for this image, existing entrants being: “Dude, where’s my tractor?”, “My chest has slipped again” and “Look, I can make a smiley face with my jumper”










The following day we got serious: a 14 hour car trip to far Galway and back. The road-trip was characterized by contrasts: lovely fast trip to Galway city, round-a-bout related traffic hell trying to drive around the city. Lovely gently sloping green fields were seen in east Galway, while wind-swept beaches and primal bleakness came to the fore the further west we went. Highlights of the trip included brunch at Spiddal in the new coffee shop, the windswept coast near Golam Head and the drive past Lough Inagh on the R344

Over the next few days the family went off to Powerscourt, via the Military Way, through the Wicklows and enjoyed the gardens and a rather good dinner was had by all at the Templeogue Inn. The Shepherd family left us on Friday morning, back to home to Australia and the imminent summer weather – sigh!