We Couldn't Help Ourselves!

First of all, thank you all so much for you're sweet words on the previous post! It was truly wonderful to get each and every one of your comments, and so many too!

And now, it's that time of year again!

(I forgot my camera, so please forgive the slightly dodgy iPhone photos!)

It's such a rare treat here in Ireland to leave the house at 7.30 am and for the temperature to be a lovely 17ºC, or to walk out of the cinema at 11pm at night into a balmy 22ºC. Really. It is rare. And all the more to be celebrated when it does happen.

So even though I am up to my eyes, as they say, and have a list of a million and one things to be doing, when we get weather like this it really is a case of dropping everything and heading off down the coast to maybe this beautiful beach, or another, and embracing the sun while it's here.

I do hope the sun is shining wherever you are, and your weekend is shaping up to be a wonderful one.

And if it is, then do what we did and take some time out. That list of things-to-do will still be there when you get back, won't it? It's not going anywhere without you!

Have a splendid Sunday!

All Is Full Of Love.

Is it really another year gone by?

Twenty years today.
We stood on this shore at dawn, stood side by side and made a promise in our hearts.

We stood in a place, this place that is rooted deep in both of us,
and did I feel the sands of time sweep around us, take us back into sunny days of our childhoods when we perhaps sat side by side here unbeknownst? Had we but known, when we came here in swaggering, loud adolescent swarms, young bodies plunging off the pier into head-shrinking cold, into an underwater world alive with slippery, grasping tendrils of seaweed, had we but known. Was that you over there? Did we glance, our eyes briefly meeting in flirting, innocent glimpses, unknowing how our paths were bound to cross?
At what point did our threads begin to weave together?

Time and distance notwithstanding, this place, this town we cannot shake.
Maybe it's thread is too strong in the weave of our story,
maybe we go deeper here than we know.

Were the colourful threads always here, bound together even before we knew?

Here today we stand again. 

And yes I feel those sands of time blow across my skin, twenty more years. Years of our own children playing in the sand, jumping in the water, making their own marks in the world, weaving their own stories that entwine with ours, some now beginning to find their own pattern, curling slightly away.

To this point today, we stand again. 

Today.

Oh my heart...I could not have foreseen such joy.

~*~

~*~

Summer's In Bloom.

We've had some glorious weather, followed by grim. The start to a very Irish summer, by all accounts. And it is true that we do talk an awful lot about the weather, but that's because it is just so changeable! In one day you can have hail, rain and shine. Like today.

It is heartening to see everything bursting to life around us, and some days have been truly glorious. Every year I promise myself I will start a garden and every year it becomes 'next year', yet again. Ours is a wilderness, and some day I will tame it. Someday.

But it is wonderful to have family and friends who do garden, like my parents who really and truly do make the most of their little plot. It's so lovely for the children to spend a couple of happy hours planting and watering, knowing the day will come very soon when they will be sent out to snip and pull for their dinner.

And isn't summer all about hanging out with friends, having picnics and going places? Well, we have been striving to do just that, in spite of the fact that it's not actually the holidays yet, but after all, we have to grab the sunny days when they arrive on our doorstep!

And there's nothing quite like an ice-cream sundae for a gaggle of kids on a sunny day.

But my house has been rather quiet too this week, with My Only Girl off up in the far North of the country, Donegal to be exact, a Gaeltacht where they only (mostly) speak Irish. This is the child who doesn't even do sleepovers, and in spite of the fact that she is finding it hard being so far from home, is doing it all the same.
And The Eldest has been away a bit too, off up the coast working as an extra on a film, and I have to say all of this brings a feeling of being somewhat rushed along into the next phase where they are away, gone off living their lives and oh, please!! Just hang on a sec...

Let's just pause again, for a bit...and go at toddler pace? Because they are really good at slowing things down and making the most of those long hot summer days that are just around the corner!

And finally. This is what I saw out my window one morning. And yes I am loving my iPhone Best Camera app for tweaking photos and turning my reality into a dream...

The Slowing Of The Turning Wheel.

It's been one of those weeks, with a long weekend and extra days off school upon which the sun shines. Those weeks when the quiet days draw away from you and everything is business and action.Something new and different every day. And everyone seems energised by it.
Galvanised is the word I think.

And some days it's so hard to rush them, because as we fill with light and vigor, it seems too as though we are slowing down, distracted by beauty and the cosmos that is coming alive around us.

Likewise, in school there is a sense of the beginning of winding down towards the end of the year, with little plays and songs for the parents.

So on Saturday we found a fire for Beltane.

In a place of sublime beauty. 

A hilltop surrounded by a circle of gentle rolling hills, 360º view that changed from moment to moment.

A quiet gathering.

Then yesterday evening, at last they got to leave something out for The Tardy Fairies...

And oh! The excitement this morning...

If you look closely you will see they left behind a few items which we will treasure for them in case they ever need them again.

Red Dancing Shoes. A tiny scissors. A bottle of pink glitter gloop.

What on earth must THAT be for?

Now, today, The Eldest has turned 14.

And a sticky, tricky chrysalis it is proving to be, this business of teenagerism. Confusing and challenging, and so very hard sometimes. 

But he soldiers through it all, believing absolutely in the impermanence of hardship.

And the permanence of Love.

Summer Came Knocking At My Door And I Forgot To Answer...

It's Beltaine today. The first day of May. The first day of summer. And once more I am reminded that I am further out at sea then I was even a year ago...

It must be the stage that all the children are at right now, but I find myself feeling regret at all the things I did with the older two when they were little that I just don't seem to have the time or focus to do now with the younger two.

It's been too many years since we had a Maypole like this one. And last year we didn't even manage to leave out something for the fairies like the previous years. So this year I was organised, I was focused and determined, but then The Little One was on an unplanned sleepover, and being six he would be the driving force behind my desire to make sure we include this kind of magic in our year.

So it didn't happen again this year, and I am disappointed. But I reckon that the fairies that visit here are just like us, and their time-keeping leaves something to be desired. And maybe they might just be late.

So we will wait.

And I am hoping they come tonight. The Tardy Fairies. And I am hoping we get to a bonfire today, even though we won't get to the festival of the fires on the Hill of Uisneach.

And as a result of all this mental admonishing I have to decided I need to remind myself of how easy it is to include this sort of magical thinking in the everyday. And I have come up with a plan...