Late Breaking News: the Virgin Mary tree stump

Um, yes...
this is too good...

Several workmen tending the grounds of a church in Limerick a few days ago, discovered the shape of the Virgin Mary in a tree stump. After chopping down the said tree, "One of the lads said look, our Blessed Lady in the tree,' Mr White said. 'One of the other lads looked over and actually knelt down and blessed himself, he got such a shock.' 'It was the perfect shape of the figure of Our Lady holding the baby,' he said.

Despite great skepticism from the Church, hundreds of people have flocked to the site to pray and light candles and thousands have signed a petition to prevent the removal of the tree stump from the Church grounds.
Local parish priest Fr Willie Russell said on radio station Limerick Live 95FM yesterday that people should not worship the tree. “There’s nothing there . . . it’s just a tree . . . you can’t worship a tree.” Um, yes you can.
http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/frontpage/2009/0709/1224250319175.html

Road Trip England : step 1

So peeps and peepettes, one of the trips we have been waiting to do since we arrived here was a driving holiday through England, camping among the greenery and visiting all those lovely little villages. The land of Shakespeare, Darwin, Nelson, Tea n Scones and the motorway roundabout. So we did. There is a certain magic to walking into a small old village with a market hall which was built in the 1600's or has a monument to the local lord who dug a well, thereby ensuring the village's water supply, 300+ years ago.
Anyways, how great and how simple it was to pack one's car, hop on a ferry and a couple of hours later, drive off in another country! No airports, no planes, no (ever-horrid) Ryan Air inspired delays.

Here we say goodbye to Dublin port from the ferry




and that's just a taster!
There's heaps more photos to come...

Quick Blogs 3: Visitors from OZ

Last of the Quick Blogs...
Ivan's parents are travelling around the uk, and dropped in to stay with us for a week.
It had been over a year since we saw them last (except skype-wise) and it was really great to see them again.
Nick and Mike wandered around Dublin town checking out Museums and churches.. including the wonderful Marsh's library, and the Chester Beatty Library, the Archeological museum with its preserved bodies from the bog (a genuine Irish experience and a real must for all Irish visitors), and popped into St Pats and ChristChurch Cathedral... The last two we haven't seen ourselves, so they are ahead of us in some Dublin sights.... But we have plenty of time to see all.

Then on the saturday we had lunch at the Queens Pub in Dalkey, quickly checked out the harbour and hurried back home to hide away from the appalling weather (the one odd day out in a whole week of beautiful sunshine). Snug back at home with a cup of tea we watched "The Return of the King", part 3 of the Lord of the Rings trilogy, the only one not yet seen by Nick and Mike... and who could deny Ivan the opportunity of watching it yet again. not us.

Sunday brightened up again and we set off to Co.Meath to see one of the main sites of Loughcrew Cairns (a series of neolithic burial tombs).. We had previously been up there ourselves but at the time weren't able to step inside the chamber... This time we had a guided tour of the chamber, with its fantastic carvings.











We returned home late that afternoon after dropping to the site of the Battle of the Boyne.
...thus ended a great week catching up with family.

We are off tomorrow to england camping and will actually coincide with Nick and Mike again (on their travels) and with Ivan's uncle, aunt and cousin, who last saw him when he was only 5ft tall (about 4 years old)...so that should be fun too. A big family dinner and get-together..

oops, nearly forgot... Nick's haircut on the balcony, much to the amusement of our neighbour (and possibly myself)

Well, my quick blogs have been a success, so i will try this fast pace from now on, which may mean I write and post more often, as it is less of a drag to do so... All the best, have a great weekend... Ivan and Elena

Quick Blogs 2: Co.Clare (the Coastal side)

Quick Blog 2: this is good, I'm getting them posted quickly...

Only 2 weeks ago, the long weekend in June, we took our new green tent, and all our camping supplies (except the all-important camping stove fuel, oops) to Doolin, a small lively coastal village on the coast in Co. Clare... Drop off point for the Cliffs of Moher, the Aran Islands and at the edge of the amazing rocky "Burren"..

Found a nice campsite, by a river, crawling with mosquitos and midges and set up tent beside a gang of bikies who were on a road trip/stag's weekend. (needless to say we set up our tent first, then they arrived later)... But they weren't too bad, the mossies were far worse, and the freezing air straight off the Atlantic sea, worse again.


But during the day it was very warm and sunny (and I mean very warm - perhaps 22-24 'C, not sure how we are going to cope back in Oz actually).. and we explored the gorgeous coast, the Cliffs of Moher and the Burren. We avoided the Aran islands completely as, judging from the hundreds of cars left at the ferry point on the mainland (in Doolin), it looked as though the Islands would be just a tad overcrowded.. It was a long weekend after all and we were well into tourist season.


The Cliffs of Moher: A sneak preview for Karen who will be visiting them soon
and a lovely castle on the coast (wonky drive by shot)



Lunch on the Clare coast, where the Burren meets the sea... simply amazing.. you may be able to just make out one of the Aran islands in the first pic.

Exploring the Burren inland... Home of many neolithic Dolmens, ring forts, standing stones etc.....and the odd cow and sheep..

Elsewhere in the Burren, some strange rock formations and for fans of the TV series, the very house of Father Ted (Father Ted Crilly, from Craggy Island)

Road signage in Ireland (at times, over the top but most of the time non-existent)

Quick Blogs 1 : The Mourne Mountains

Ok.... has been a while since the last blog entry and we have a small stockpile of photos to post of explorations and visitors... as the weather is lovely at moment (most of the time), it is also the time to explore and travel again and we have been busy doing just that recently..
Also we are off tomorrow to go camping with our brilliant and enormous new tent (pictured in next post) to England for 2 weeks... So the next few posts are quick catchups on what we have been up to.

1st Up:

The Mourne Mountains and Coast of Co. Down , Northern Ireland
(see map on RHS blog to see where this is)
A few weekends ago, this was our first journey across the border into Northern Ireland..
It was beautiful and very close to home so we will be doing some more exploring there this year.

We drove through Carlingford which is a cute little village in the Republic of Ireland and sits at the edge of Carlingford Lough... then we crossed the other side of the lough and there we were in Northern Ireland, in Co. Down, "Where the mountains O'Mourne sweep down to the sea" (Song by William Percy French, 1854–1920). And absolutely beautiful it is too.

A brief weekend only but we climbed a small mounain (don't know which) in the Mourne's, drove around and checked out the elusive but grand Legannany Dolmen.

Scotland the brave and the cold

This Easter just gone, (or more truthfully, weeks ago) we upped and flew off to Glasgow, or Glesgow as the locals say it: Home of our friends Dr.Sabeena, Dr.Toby and the ever-gorgeous Dr.Who...
Without a doubt, the safest place on planet Earth, if not the whole Universe.
And of course.... Glasgow is not far at all from our two recently-aquired properties in Western Scotland.
We had a wonderful stay, the weather was really good, and we had a relaxed gander at ‘Scotland with Style’. The highlights of the stay included Toby discovering his softer, gentler side and the ability to share a joke with the flower bed.









The gardens in central Glasgow are truly delightful and there is a really strong Kelvin, (as in Lord – the temperature dude), theme running through them. An example is shown below, the statue should be not be confused with the Kelvin Gardens, Kelvin Bridge, The River Kelvin, The Kelvin way, Kelvingrove, Kelvinhall, Kelvin Walk, and of course, Kelvin’s Organ. NB: Born William Thomson and took Kelvin after the river of the city to whose University he was appointed the Chair of Natural Philosophy at the ripe age of 22.

L-R: Ivan and Kelvin : the world's greatest minds come together, Glasgow's Big Brother watching our every move

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L-R: Glasgow uni, Kelingrove museum...

L-R: All the big dead exctint animals (including Giant Irish deer in background), the not so exctint big animals and lastly one of the littlest and cutest animals alive today (not up for discussion)

On the Sunday we mounted up in Toby’s trusty chariot and took a ferry from Gourock to Dunoon. We found the roads were really quite narrow with these peculiar bulges every so often. The reason for these soon became apparent.

After breathing again we drove onto inspect our Colintraive estate, the first of our Scottish properties.

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L-R: Our bit is somewhere around here: (not neccesarily with that lovely view of the lake, but without ever finding the exact spot of land, hope does spring eternal)
Here, some scottish furry rocks - just for Sabeena :)

We departed from Colintraive and drove about 15 km north to the new family home: The Laird’s Retreat,. (much less ellusive than the other).

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L-R: Pointing out where our property must lie, The party seeks out the property..

Property found! Our modest property can be seen here, it’s in the black ellipse, 1” x 1” – thank-you very much to the Cope/Steel Family for the lovely wedding presents.

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The castle itself is being rebuilt after being burnt out in 2001 and the property is being restored to it former glory. For more information see http://lairdofdunanscastle.com/.

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Dr. Toby himself, whose very own brother is now also a Laird at Dunan's castle and our own neighbour! We have it on very good opinion that this brother, Laird Ben, is indeed a gentleman with perfect manners and looks, not at all like the scruffy yet excellent Dr. Toby.

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L-R: The whole party at Dunan's castle (renovator's delight).

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Some very much alive species we saw on the road... so cute!

We’re quite jealous of the lovely apartment which Sabeena has found, with high ceilings and a massive front room. They have their own local, private, park – or will have when they pay the annual access fee!

L-R: The street where they live, alongside the private park (key access only): Excuse me!

In short we rather liked Glasgow and we should be able to get back to Scotland for another visit to kilt-country and visit Stirling Castle

Check out the excellent Dr Toby's musings at http://aturgidaffair.blogspot.com/

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.by IW with unwanted commentry and asides from EF