Other pictures at random:
The house, from a field - this is where the entrance probably was originally. Now it winds around from the side (the view from my bedroom, at the end of the post).
The view opposite to the one above - standing on the front steps, looking out into the pasture.
Josie (the very energetic middle child, 10 yrs) with the dogs. The brown one is Shnoogie, or Gay Boy, and the black lab (still grow I N G) is Ozzie (as in, Ozzie Osbourne).
The kitchen - one of my favorite rooms because it has tea and warmth.
Atty at the stove, pretending to threaten me. She sort of looks like she's crying. But she's laughing.
Ozzie and Shnoogie peacefully snoozing in the kitchen.
I haven't moved to where I'm supposed to live yet, there was a ceiling issue, but this is the toilet in my area right now. I've also never seen a toilet like this. That big white thing at the top of the picture is where the water is. Funky, eh?
Donkeys
Check out this huge beech tree stump! (Those are my feet)
The kitchen - one of my favorite rooms because it has tea and warmth.
Atty at the stove, pretending to threaten me. She sort of looks like she's crying. But she's laughing.
I've never seen this before: an aga. There are two burners, covered by those big metal things. The one on the left is HOT, that's where you cook things. The right one (covered by a towel in this picture) is more of a warming burner. There are five oven spaces. From top right clockwise they get progressively cooler. This thing is on constantly, burning (a huge amount of) gas. You open what you need when you need it and otherwise it looks like this.
Ozzie and Shnoogie peacefully snoozing in the kitchen.
I haven't moved to where I'm supposed to live yet, there was a ceiling issue, but this is the toilet in my area right now. I've also never seen a toilet like this. That big white thing at the top of the picture is where the water is. Funky, eh?
The view from my (current) window yesterday morning.
And in the afternoon, when the sun had come out. People keep telling me that the weather is uncharacteristically nice, so either the sun rarely shines in Irish winters, or the people I have met are terribly pessimistic. Perhaps a mixture of both.
Well that clarifies absolutely nothing about what my life is like. I have no routine, we have just been constantly visiting, once every day except yesterday, either hosting or attending somewhere. Since there is all this socializing, I am being offered far too much alcohol, and I must put up a fight if I want to remain sober. It was a bit much to start with champagne at 11:30 on Christmas morning. People keep pouring me wine when I'm not looking or filling me up before I have a chance to refuse or pouring me a new glass of champagne when I've finally gotten rid of one. One night I was drinking coke in between glasses of wine and I turned around and someone was filling me up with red wine. It's a weird mixture. I don't really recommend it.
The kids are fun, I haven't spent all that much time with them. They have a lot of electronic games that make me feel like a grandma because I don't understand them.
Everyone I have met is very friendly, mostly members of Atty and Arthur's families.
It's much warmer than Minnesota, so HA.
Tomorrow Atty and I are hopefully sort of constructing a schedule so that I am in some sort of pattern for how things will be.
I have read a lot - they gave me three books for Christmas and I finished two of them. The first one was The Commitments, by Roddy Doyle - funny and fast read, also a movie in the 80's, I belive. Second, Something to Hide, a biography of Sheila Wingfield, a semi-known poet of the last century who was also Atty's grandmother. The poem of hers I recognized was this one:
Odysseus Dying
I think Odysseus, as he dies, forgets
Which was Calypso, which Penelope,
Only remembering the wind that sets
Off Mimas, and how endlessly
His eyes were stung with brine;
Argos a puppy, leaping happily;
And his old Father digging round a vine.
Email me if you're bored. I love that stuff.
Well that clarifies absolutely nothing about what my life is like. I have no routine, we have just been constantly visiting, once every day except yesterday, either hosting or attending somewhere. Since there is all this socializing, I am being offered far too much alcohol, and I must put up a fight if I want to remain sober. It was a bit much to start with champagne at 11:30 on Christmas morning. People keep pouring me wine when I'm not looking or filling me up before I have a chance to refuse or pouring me a new glass of champagne when I've finally gotten rid of one. One night I was drinking coke in between glasses of wine and I turned around and someone was filling me up with red wine. It's a weird mixture. I don't really recommend it.
The kids are fun, I haven't spent all that much time with them. They have a lot of electronic games that make me feel like a grandma because I don't understand them.
Everyone I have met is very friendly, mostly members of Atty and Arthur's families.
It's much warmer than Minnesota, so HA.
Tomorrow Atty and I are hopefully sort of constructing a schedule so that I am in some sort of pattern for how things will be.
I have read a lot - they gave me three books for Christmas and I finished two of them. The first one was The Commitments, by Roddy Doyle - funny and fast read, also a movie in the 80's, I belive. Second, Something to Hide, a biography of Sheila Wingfield, a semi-known poet of the last century who was also Atty's grandmother. The poem of hers I recognized was this one:
Odysseus Dying
I think Odysseus, as he dies, forgets
Which was Calypso, which Penelope,
Only remembering the wind that sets
Off Mimas, and how endlessly
His eyes were stung with brine;
Argos a puppy, leaping happily;
And his old Father digging round a vine.
Email me if you're bored. I love that stuff.
