Gardening Calendar

The Harpist, BW Babe and I in the Orangery

Old Grey Frog and BW Babe Stolling through the Castle Gardens

A View of the Lake
It Looks a Bit Choppy

Glenveah Castle
Just a Little Summer Place

Signage was in Gaelic and English

Columbine
I'm thinking about adding a few to my garden at The Lake

Word of the Day

Telepathetic - Describing a miserable failure in an attempt to use mental telepathy to communicate or receive information.

I woke up at 5:30 AM, threw on my clothes and raced down to the lobby of our hotel by 6:30 AM….just to see if I could get online to blog. Silly me. However, it worked. I was able to post yesterday’s blog…this morning. And right now? I’m writing my blog offline because…I can’t get online. Seems that the internet at this hotel is a bit touchy. BW Babe is sitting right next to me with her laptop and she could get online. Oh well. To continue, I did get online this morning and was able to check my email and post pictures from yesterday on Facebook. A kind waiter brought us some coffee. Us? By this time one of our fellow tour members had sat down near me and was able to get online with her IPhone. As we sat quietly in the lobby, we chatted, clicked away on our electronic devices, and sipped some really good coffee. BW Babe joined us at 8 AM with her laptop and we had a fine group of us nerdy types sitting in the lobby of the hotel until I decided enough was enough and went back upstairs to stow my laptop before heading to the breakfast room to get a roll. However, instead, I let temptation get the better of me and enjoyed a full Irish breakfast. Well…Not quite full. I didn’t eat any of the black or white pudding or the sausage. Instead I just had one egg, a tomato, some baked beans and a roll. Very good. I wonder what HTP would say if I served him baked beans for breakfast? Or fried tomatoes?

We were all loaded back onto our tour bus by 9:30 AM. As we headed to Glenveagh National Park, Batt talked to us about an organization established in the 50’s to support and preserve traditional Irish music. Comhatas Ceol Craic. They started the organization when it became apparent that the Irish were losing their own local music in favor of Elvis and Johnny Cash.
We are in the county Donegal which is very rocky. The land isn’t very fertile but we are seeing LOTS of sheep. When you can’t cultivate, when the land is hilly, bring in the sheep.

On our way to the park, we passed a bog area where peat was being cut and stacked to dry. We saw this during our tour with Liam earlier in the trip.

I didn’t realize when we were told that we’d be visiting Glenveagh National Park that we’d be touring a castle….not an actual castle but a home that was built to resemble a castle. Very beautiful! It was very interesting to find out that the book Separate Peace (required reading for me in high school) was written at a desk in the castle by one of the guests when he was there on a visit. Greta Garbo was also a guest at one time. After touring the castle, BW and I headed out to take a stroll through the gardens and encountered a gardener as he was pruning an apple tree, training it to grow along a wire. We chatted with him for a while and he took our picture against the backdrop of the castle. We saw many flowers that we recognized and some that we didn’t. Hopping the shuttle bus back to the visitor center, we had a wonderful lunch at the visitor center.

It was decided that we’d return to our hotel for a free afternoon of wandering the town of Letterkenny (Leitir Ceanainn) before dinner but first, we drove the long way home through the lands of the banshees and pookas. No man would dare walk through the countryside here after dark according to our story-teller and guide, Batt Burns.

I discovered an antique store as we drove into town the yesterday and I can never resist antiques. BW Babe and I didn’t realize that it was located so close to our hotel. So, given some free time, we wandered over to check out the antiques, just to see if there might be something interesting and small that we could bring back home with us. I restrained myself to buying one REALLY cheap pin and one silver pin. BW invested a bit more by buying a couple of pendants in gold. She’d been looking for a Celtic cross to bring back and found a nice antique one, a lot nicer than a brand new one that she’d probably have had to pay lots more for at one of the jewelry stores.

And now? My internet is off and on so I’m working offline. Maybe I’ll get a connection again while I sit here. Supper is scheduled for 6:45 PM. I’m hoping that they’ll be playing Irish music again in the bar tonight before dinner. Regardless, I’m not staying up late tonight, futilely hoping for an internet connection. Tomorrow is another day and we’ll be heading to Ballina. Time to get all packed up and organized once again for travel....but first....I had to give the internet one more try after dinner and...we've got touchdown. A blog posted on the very day it was written. I may get to bed on time tonight.



Random Quote of the Day

A traveler must have the back of an ass to bear all,
a tongue like the tail of a dog to flatter all,
the mouth of a hog to eat what is set before him,
the ear of a merchant to hear all and say nothing.

Thomas Nashe