All Aboard!

A busy couple of days. I met up with my friend, Rita, in Portland on Sunday where we boarded the Downeaster for Boston. Dudes! They have lobster rolls on the train! (OK, it was kind of mushy but still . . . ) Maine really is the way life should be. Anyhoo, our stops were Old Orchard Beach, Saco/Scarborough, Wells, Dover, Durham, Exeter, Haverhill (Hooterville) and then North Station in Boston. So awesome.

 We checked into the Lenox (fabulous!) and this was our view, Back Bay and right in the heart of some fabulous shopping so of course, off we went for a little retail therapy.

Our prime reason for coming to Boston however, was to see the one and only Mary Chapin Carpenter in concert. She was touring for her new album, The Age of Miracles (isn't that funny how we say album when really it's not and hasn't been for . . . how many years?) She was wonderful. Really wonderful. I love that her songs are so thoughtful, that her voice is so beautiful and that she does so much for the greater good. I bought one of her signed CDs for my friend, Sue. The money will go to help with the oil spill in the Gulf. See what I mean?

My nephew, Josh - now 16 years of age OMG - arrived from Guatemala while we were at the concert and it was such a pleasure to see his smiling face when we got in. I'd love to show it to you but as usual:

No worries though, I've got two weeks to snap that face!

Today was my first stint as a volunteer shuttle driver at the Coastal Maine Botanical Gardens.

So, listen to this: I show up a little early, eager to begin my training. The person who is supposed to train me doesn't show up. So, I went looking and found my golf cart, rounded up a key and set out to do my rounds. Luckily, I know how to drive a golf cart. Granted this one is a little longer (like twice as) than I'm used to but it went ok. Well, it did once I found the power switch under the back seat anyway. Who knew?

I got lost the first round but then got my bearings and it was really fun. I can't believe how fast the time went. I had a few "WOAHs" when I backed up a little too far (that long back end, you know), and a few "slow downs" but for the most part it was lots of laughs and I let people know that they were taking their lives in their own hands as I had not a clue what I was doing.  zooooooommmm

I do need to do a little research because I was asked everything from what is that little red and white bush to who gave the most money to the gardens to how many acres, etc. Stuff I guess I would have learned in my training . . .

Anyhoo, must admit I chose this shift so I could have lunch in the cafe - fresh greens from the gardens - but when I came in the building after I parked my cart, they said, OH, we had so many good comments about you from our visitors - Wow!

yay for LizzieAlone

So, when I went to Scotland, I neglected to empty my compost and the container sat under my sink for two weeks in the nice warm air.  OMG

When I got home, fruit flies. And I don't mean just one or two. Swarms of fruit flies. You could barely breathe in through your nose without getting a couple up there in the old nasal passages.

Fruit flies are disgusting, if you ask me. Now, I know that scientists like to study them (although you'd think they'd go blind even watching the little suckers thru a microscope, they're so teeny) because they share a lot of genetic matches with us as far as diseases go. I don't care. I just want them gone.

I cleared out any food whatsoever and bleached practically every surface in my house. They are still here. Well, I'll tell you why. Those stupid female flies lay about 2000 eggs in their lifetime and their lifetime is like 10 or 12 days!! They apparently have one track minds - well maybe two because besides sex, they do eat a lot of rotting fruit. I blame the male fruit flies actually. They are all over ALL the females. No mating for life for these guys. Sound familiar? Anyhoo, don't get me started . . .

My latest strategy? Little bowls of balsamic vinegar with a drop of dish detergent, covered with plastic wrap with tiny holes punched in it. They can get in but can't seem to get out. They love the vinegar but the soap, I think, does them in. Plus they are trapped in their little plastic domes from hell. ha!  (Picture me rubbing my hands together with an evil laugh at their expense.)

So, this is me, ridding the world of fruit flies one at a time. I think maybe there might be fewer today.     Maybe...

Windjammer Days

Windjammer ghosting past the mouth of my Little River on his way home.

Happy Solstice!

 It is definitely summer. All the summer visitors are up and even if I leave at 6am for my walk, it still takes me an hour to go around the peninsula because one must of course stop and pass the time of day with one's neighbors.

Look at my nice new fences.

* * * * * * 

Forgot about these next two pictures. My itty bitty BFF, Leslie and her husband Tom, visited yesterday. We met up at the Bistro for tapas (shout out to Mark at the Boathouse Bistro - Chef Karin's food is AWESOME!)

  And, just one more. Gloria took this of David and me when they visited on their way up to Bah Hahbah.

 Thank you for visiting, my friends! Come back soon.

Nothing like a good thunderstorm to cheer one up!

Storm coming . . .

Storm here . . .

Storm REALLY here!

First harvest

Wow, all of my seeds sprouted while I was gone and I have a good crop of basil, dill, tarragon, radishes and mesclun greens (oh, and weeds, but I'm working on that). Here is my first harvest and it was yummy, all warm from the sun.

Who knew a radish could be so cute, right??

Back to reality

OK, so now I am finally in real time, having caught you up with my travels. I celebrated my birthday on Tuesday. My friend Rita took me to lunch at my favorite American pub, King Eider.

Here is what Miss Sarah presented me with in honor of The Day.


And, here is what I got to see as the sun went down on my 54th birthday.

Did I mention how lucky I am?

My last full day in Dublin, I took a city bus tour, saw lots of Georgian architecture, beautiful old townhouses with different colored doors. Crossed the River Liffey about a dozen times, saw the General Post Office where the 1916 rebellion started and visited the Famine Memorial, larger than life and very powerful. Check it out:

Visited Christ Church Cathedral, dating to 1030(!) if you count the time of the Vikings there and why wouldn't you?  (costs millions in upkeep each year – wonder where they get the money.)

 

Then, I eschewed the Guinness or Jamison tours and went to Kilmainham Gaol and had a tour with Raorie.  (Can’t believe I actually used “eschewed” in a sentence. V. cool. Good for me.) Raorie (pronounced Rory) was passionate about the history of this horrible jail. I asked him if it bothered him or intruded in his sleep and he said yes, but people needed to know what happened here.

It is a really creepy place, freezing cold even in June so I could just imagine what it must have been like in the winter months.

He reeled off the names of the leaders of the Easter uprising (as though they were family members or close friends), all shot here without benefit of trial or justice, and told the story of the wedding of Joseph Plunkett and Grace Gifford just hours before Joseph was shot by the firing squad. Chilling to be standing in front of his cell and hearing how they were able to share a few short hours where they could barely speak, armed guards standing there with them, before he was taken away and shot. It was the killing of these men that finally swayed the opinion of the general public and at last, the Irish got out from under British rule and became the Irish Republic.

This is a picture of the exercise yards where prisoners got an hour a day, separate spaces for the men, women and children (during the famine, an 8-year-old child would be put here for 5 years for stealing a loaf of bread!) This is also where prisoners were shot and hanged AND buried.

I can’t tell you how many times during my Scots-Irish visit, I felt gratitude (and some guilt actually) for being alive in this time in history. And American. And White. You get the picture. So lucky.

The last night, I had dinner with Diana, a travel agent from Honolulu I met at the storytelling dinner. We went to The Mermaid Cafe on the recommendation of Mary Wilson, Dublin City Tour Guide (snooty woman but knows her restaurants.) If you are ever in Dublin, you must go. It was fantastic!

Flew back across the pond and let me tell you, I wish I could have stayed over there forever.

The end

So, Dublin. I stayed at the Burlington which is a huge hotel and felt so impersonal after staying in so many small establishments in little villages. But, I could walk or catch the bus to wherever I wanted to go so it worked out just fine. The first night, I went to the Brazen Head. It is the oldest pub in Ireland and dates from the, get this: 1100's!! Imagine!

The next picture is of a girl I met there. She was the sweetest thing but really, it just appealed to me to take a picture of her, well, brazen head.  hahaha

The real draw for me was the music and storytelling. I had dinner in an upstairs room and I can't remember what I ate because the entertainment was so good. I liked the traditional music with fiddle and guitar but best of all was the folklore and fairie stories told by Johnny (and I'm sorry but I can't remember his last name.) Here's his picture. He was absolutely great.

 One weird thing, I went looking for a restroom during the evening, wandered down a couple of flights of stairs and turned to my left into a room and found myself next to a coffin with people sitting in chairs around the room. A wake. YIKES!! I suddenly found I didn't have to go anymore and raced back upstairs.

Two days to go and as I made my way to Dublin, I drove through Castlebar to visit Strokestown Park House in County Roscommon. There are three parts to see. There is the 18^th century mansion with its original furnishings, a walled garden, restored to look as it would have during it’s heyday, and the Famine Museum which contained original documents and pictures to explain the great Irish famine of the 1840’s. Truly truly awful. I mean, the population was something like 8 million before the famine and in only a few years, due to death and emigration, 1 million! Even today, they are not up to the original number. It was the poorest social class that suffered. They were the landless laborers. This place was interesting because they still had the papers of the times and you could see how the landowner, this Major Mahon, legally responsible for his tenants, decided it was cheaper to send them out of the country than to pay for their upkeep in the workhouse (which was absolutely appalling, by the way – they had pictures.) So, he bought passage for 1,000 of his tenants to Canada and almost half of them died during the voyage due to a combination of already poor health and the unsanitary conditions on the ships. Poor people. I spent quite a few hours in this museum. It was heartbreaking. All because of the potato blight. Remember that granny guide? She told me the potato blight started in the U.S. and was airborne to Ireland. She was pissed about it too! These Irish ate 14 pounds of potatoes per day. Imagine. But that’s about all they had so when the blight hit, starvation set in fast.

Anyhoo, I was not too upset to hear that Major Mahon was shot and killed, assassinated. (took me about 3 tries to spell that)They even had the gun on display.

And, speaking of display, descendants of the family have lived in the mansion until very recently. They started going broke and eventually the elderly couple was living in just one room of the place while everything else moldered away. These gorgeous silken draperies decaying and water stains on the beautiful crown molding. It is in the process of being restored but in the meantime, I could go all over the house and touch whatever I wanted to, walking on the original carpets. Crazy. I could have picked up a priceless antique and walked out with it. (I didn’t.)

This was my favorite thing. A child's tea set. And, it includes wine glasses!  haha

The weird thing is that I am reading this book by Elizabeth Waters set in post-war Britain wherein the family has gradually closed up the house and moved into just three or so rooms of their ridiculously huge family manse because they cannot afford the upkeep. Quite a coincidence. It’s called “The Little Stranger.” Really creepy ghost story, if you're into that kind of thing.

Just one more . . .

These two just would not get out of my way on Achill Island, right down the road they went for what seemed like miles.

Beautiful Achill Island

I took a day trip from Westport to Achill Island, traveling around Clew Bay and taking this bridge to the island:

It is a beautiful place, windswept and rather desolate with wonderful views of steep mountains and sandy beaches. The human residents probably number in the hundreds while I would say the sheep number in the thousands.

The remains of a deserted famine village are on one hillside. About one hundred cottages abandoned in the 1840's famine.

Such a sad time in Ireland's history. Standing among these ruins, one can feel the hopelessness these poor starving people must have felt, having to give up their land and their homes.

This is all that is left.

On a brighter note, back in Westport I went pubbing with my pal, George, at Matt Molloy's (of Chieftains fame for those of you in the know) and met some fun people, including a group of french girls, all of us dancing and calling out "merci beaucoup, merci beaucoup!"

So, briefly, my two stops en route to Westport:

First off, the Ulster American Folk Park was in Omagh and traces the story of Ulster emigrants to the Appalachians where they became know as the "Scotch Irish." You get an idea of how people lived in the old country before settling in the new world. They do tend to go on about how many famous people, including one third of all U.S. presidents have Scots Irish heritage.  This was my cute little granny guide. (I could hardly keep up with her!) Oh, and have to say the place was closed when I got there and she opened the gates for me and showed me around!

They did a good job of recreating life back then. A lot of the houses and furnishings came from the local countryside and were moved on to this property. I was glad the place was closed because apparently, they usually have people in the houses and peat fires going and if you ever smelled a peat fire, well it will choke the life out of you.

They also had a life size replica of the hold of a ship similar to the "coffin ships" that carried the poor emigrants to America, Canada and Australia. Kinda creepy but my pics didn't come out very well.
I did get a picture of these cute pigs in the barn though:

I made a quick stop at William Butler Yeats grave in County Sligo. The church was pretty but the churchyard was in abysmal shape - looked like something out of Night of the Living Dead.

Yikes!

I used to love this Yeats poem:

When you are old and grey and full of sleep,

And nodding by the fire, take down this book,

And slowly read, and dream of the soft look

Your eyes had once, and of their shadows deep;

How many loved your moments of glad grace,

And loved your beauty with love false or true,

But one man loved the pilgrim Soul in you,

And loved the sorrows of your changing face;

And bending down beside the glowing bars,

Murmur, a little sadly, how Love fled

And paced upon the mountains overhead

And hid his face amid a crowd of stars.

The Irish Republic

En Route to Westport, Ireland . . .

Here are a few scenes along the road to westport. I've been so lucky with the weather and June is lovely in the Irish Republic.

All around the countryside there is brilliant yellow gorse blooming and I never knew rhododendrons grew wild. They grow in the hedgerows and up into the trees, beautiful purpley pink flowers. Also, fuscia grows wild and I could go on and on.

 I arrived in Westport in the late afternoon and checked into a hotel in the middle of town. I ended up staying two nights. A vibrant little town and very pretty. I did a couple of day trips, one to the island of Achel and also to the Strokestown House and the Famine Museum. Oh, and also visited the Ulster American Folk Park and Yeats's grave. 

  More about those places later. This blog is a few days behind schedule as I am currently sitting in the airport waiting to board my plane for Boston. I truly wish I did not have to leave.

I cannot figure out how to get this dang underline out of here. grrrrrr