Showing posts with label Ireland. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Ireland. Show all posts

Monday, November 4, 2019

Ramblings



I'm just wandering around in my mind because I don't feel like getting organized, so here are my rambles:

 My two daughters and I went to Ireland, had a great time, saw the usual places and some new ones.  

 I learned the value of really good car rental insurance.  I have no problem driving on the left side of the road while seated on the right side of the car, and oddly enough, I am a champ at parallel parking.  I DO have a problem with tiny parking spaces in parking garages, and I scrubbed the left front of the rental car on a concrete post in a garage in Galway.  There were two narrow spaces between two large posts and that's where I had the problem; when I returned the car, no problem.  Phew.  Also, the car was a Toyota hybrid, which I think means a Prius, and I loved it.  Used not a lot of gas for a lot of driving.

We found the church in Garvagh where my paternal grandmother was baptized in 1881. She moved to the US in 1905 and died here in 1953.  I only met her once and I was not even five yet so I only vaguely remember her.  I have tried without success to get her birth certificate but I just found my grandfather's bc and it is on its way to me.  If I can get his death certificate, I can apply for Irish citizenship.  

Isn't it pretty!

I need my grandfather's social security number to apply for his death certificate, and I have no idea if he even had one, and if he did, how to find it.  More research ahead.  I have no idea why I would want an Irish passport, or what I would do with it.  But I'm stubborn enough to think that if I CAN have one, I SHOULD have one.  


We had fish and chips, of course, several times. And, of course, Irish stew, and of course, Guinness.  Or at least, I did.  

Because one of my daughters had been to Ireland before, and I had been there twice before, some destinations were a repeat for one or both of us, but everything was a first for older daughter.  A special treat for all of us was Newgrange.  




It was built in about 3200 BC and is an example of very early genius engineering.  It's quite small inside and the ceiling is amazing---slabs of rocks arranged and stacked to form a dome, and the builders knew to slightly tilt the rock towards the outside of the structure so that rain would not get inside---and it hasn't in all these centuries.  Soil is mounded up over the rock portion so it looks much larger than the inside actually is.  Archaeologists aren't sure what the structure was used for, but during winter solstice, at sunrise, light comes inside through the window above the doorway and lights up the path to the center of the round space where we gathered, only fifteen of us at a time.  


In Galway I bought another cabled sweater.  What Georgia resident doesn't need even more wool clothing?


And speaking of knitting, since I returned home, I have finished two more projects:

A second Cowboys and Angels


And another pair of socks.  (Magpie yarn)




And now, for something completely different, this explains where ghosts come from, but now that Halloween is over and the ghosts are gone, we are still left with the struggle to put duvets inside their covers.  I've gotten smart and let my husband do it.  He has come up with a technique that involves turning the cover inside out and then doing something that involves hanging the whole thing over the stairway railing.  I have not bothered to learn this technique.  



And speaking of Halloween, sort of, this is what is left of a bag of 90 assorted candies.  I had never heard of Starburst so I tried one.  The pieces look like bubble gum, but, SURPRISE, they aren't.  I'm not sure what they are; they aren't particularly sweet and I couldn't discern a flavor.  Sorry kids, but I'm sure you got some M&Ms, Twix and Three Musketeers I gave out in each handful of candy.


And, that's probably enough rambling for now. 

Thanks for reading, especially if you made it to the end.  

Slán.

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Saturday, April 15, 2017

Those Irish


They are a sturdy, hardy lot. 

 Because they have persevered through all of the trials and tribulations that they have been exposed to by climate, the Vikings, the British and it seems like everyone else through the centuries, even by each other?

 Sure.

 But also because they can knit good old Irish wool yarn, this Aran yarn, specifically. I bought it last fall when I was in Ireland because I loved the color, but I've just finished knitting a hat in it, and boyoboy, is it tough stuff. Made for knitting clothing for the fishermen going out on the homicidal ocean in cold, windy weather to fish. It's the kind of coarse, rustic yarn that people are remembering when they say they can't wear wool; "It's too scratchy."


 This yarn is so tough that it broke my needles!


The cord broke off of the needle itself, not from the weight of the yarn; it's quite light. Just from the struggle of wrestling it around the needles and pulling the yarn through the loops.

Not a problem in the end---I just transferred it to double points and continued. Because I'm sturdy and hardy too!  Just don't make me go to the snowy north in the winter, ok?

I'm so sturdy and hardy that when I weighed the hat (2.3 oz.) and the yarn I have left (2.7 oz.) I didn't even whimper a bit when I realized I have enough for another hat.

Oh, yay.
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Friday, October 7, 2016

My Poor Brooklyn Tweed Yarn


I've just frogged my Brooklyn Tweed Shelter yarn, AGAIN. I had swatched and swatched and swatched this yarn in order to get the right gauge for a sweater I wanted to knit, but the swatches all lied and I had to rip out the first incarnation of the sweater. I changed needle size, got a drape I liked in the yarn, but still didn't like the way the sweater was working out. So I've frogged the whole thing, including the twisted rib beginning of the sweater and sleeves. I  thought I might soak the hank because the yarn is all squiggly, and I still might, but I'm putting it all in a time-out and maybe everything will behave better next time.

Now, on to Ireland and the UK. I first wandered around England, Scotland and Wales with my husband, and then joined my sister in Ireland.  So---photos!

 Sweaters for sale were everywhere, and ON sale too, which seems odd timing considering winter should be on its way. I saw this neck border on several sweaters and loved it, so I investigated.  It is knit separately from the sweater and then attached to the neckline.  I may try it out someday.


This is a bike outside of this cute little shop in Derry. All the knitted goods inside were for children younger than my grandchildren, who live in hot Texas anyway, so I didn't buy anything here but it was fun to look at all the gorgeous knitting. Some of Edel MacBride's patterns are available on Ravelry.
Photos in no particular order:

 Who says it's always raining in the UK and Ireland???


The view of the back of Kilkenny Castle:

A portion of the wall around the city of Derry/Londonderry. 


Just some of the oddly shaped rock formations at the Giant's Causeway in Northern Ireland.


A hurdy-gurdy player in Galway.  I had never seen one before and had to google it to find out what it is:


An old school at the entrance area to the Giant's Causeway:


Complete with the iconic red phone booth. We saw one of these in London painted black and with a sign indicating that it is now a source for WIFI. 

 A pretty street---I don't remember where it is and the new iPhoto program no longer identifies location for photos. Either that or I have some setting wrong.



 Another street.....somewhere.


Sheep wandering wherever they want:



A quaint view from a hotel window near Dublin.  hahaha.  Wind turbines are everywhere, and I imagine that with all the windy days they have, these are a good source of electricity.


More to come.
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Saturday, October 1, 2016

My Apologies

to the island nations of the UK and Ireland. I just spent about three weeks wandering around both islands, and to have enough space in my luggage for whatever I might buy to bring home for my grandchildren and me, I followed the advice of two friends who travel a lot with only carry-on luggage. They do this by saving soon to be discarded clothing (underwear and shirts, whatever, isn't readily visible to the public) and discard them along the way. I did that, and it is a great idea, except that I don't know where island countries put trash. 

 So I apologize for the usual things that I discarded in hotel wastebaskets, but I especially apologize for these:

This is, or rather, was, my right Dansko clog, which I alternate wearing with my sneakers when I have a lot of walking to do. My sister and I checked into our hotel, left for dinner, and when we returned, there was black crumbly stuff on the floor.  Hmmph. Some vacuuming job, we thought.

 The next night, in a different hotel room, the same thing happened. Hmmmm. Must be one of us picked up something outside...two days in a row???

 Not likely, so we checked our shoes and my Dansko had disintegrated. 

 Out it went. Off to a landfill I suppose. I read once that we don't really throw things away; we just put them someplace else (like the landfill) and that's true. So I apologize to Ireland.
But my sister and I had a great time and it could have been different. The last time we travelled in a car together was many decades ago and the trips involved: Mom, she's in my space. Mom, she won't stop looking at me. Mom, D (our brother) is bugging us. Good times, y'all, good times. 

 But none of that happened on this trip. And as a bonus, my sister is a map genius! Who knew! I am definitely map-impaired and need instructions: turn left at ...., go straight for 11 miles, etc. She was the perfect navigator and I could concentrate on driving a manual shift car, shifting with my LEFT hand, driving from the RIGHT side of the front seat, on the LEFT side of the road. I adjusted by the second day so it was easier than I had anticipated.

 Enough!
---time for pictures of a gorgeous country:
 






We met some real Mayo Blackface Sheep:


Came across a wedding party at Bunratty Castle:
1941 Cadillac

Watched a rooster and chicken try to share tea with a visitor at the tea room at Bunratty Castle:
And we climbed way too many tiny stairs to get to the top of Bunratty Castle:
William Penn, founder of Pennsylvania, was here, as a baby, in 1646.



All for now! I will put up more pictures when I organize them in my brain...and on my computer. 
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Wednesday, December 9, 2015

It's Too Cold Out

(for me) to go for a walk so I'll wait until later. In the meantime, some of the rest of the photos from Ireland. Not the entire rest, since there are 500 plus photos, but just a few. 
This is, and I am not joking, a two-lane road. We drove clockwise around the Ring of Kerry in order not to follow the busses that go around in a counter-clockwise direction. What we hadn't figured on was having those busses come at us on a road like this:

Let me tell you, it was EXCITING! Fortunately, unlike other roads in Ireland, this road was edged by wall of greenery, not rocks, and we could squeeeeeeze over and make enough room. No damage to the rental car. Whew.
This photo is of a random ruin along the Ring of Kerry. There were no signs for it, so maybe no one even knows its history, but it's still there, a photo op for us tourists.  


More from the Ring of Kerry. 



The cattle in Ireland have prettier views than most people do from their homes!!!



These are photos of the library at Trinity College in Dublin. What a gorgeous room. We took a tour with a student guide, and she said that to obtain a book from this library, a student has to know the size of the book; they are arranged according to size, with the largest on the bottom shelves, and the smallest on the top.  



 The Book of Kells was in another room in this library and we did get to see that as well.

Sheep, of course. In the Republic of Ireland we saw many more dairy cattle than we did sheep and that was surprising. There appeared to be a lot more sheep in Northern Ireland.  



And, just because I like this photo. A building AND a tractor in my "signature" color. I saw that in a design magazine; designers have signature colors. If they can, why can't we? I thought, and I picked turquoise. 

Who has ever seen a turquoise tractor? I have!


That's all for now folks!
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Friday, October 2, 2015

Socks and more


While we were in Ireland I wore hand knit socks every day---what a treat. We walked and walked and walked and my Fitbit was very happy with me and smiled every day. Usually it frowns. Judgey Fitbit.

We live in the south, so warm socks aren't much of a necessity most of the year. When I came home from the trip, I finished the Soumak, phew, and because that had taken so l.o.n.g to knit, I have concentrated on quick projects, among them, SOCKS! I am making these from what I believe is called a sock flat, yarn that has been machine knit flat, then hand-painted with dyes, and then stamped with designs. The completed sock is a totally unpredictable pattern of colors. One down, one to go.



I can't find the tag that came with the flat, so if you wanted to knit the same sock, you CAN'T!

(sorry)  (Actually, now you can!  It's Gale's Art Sock blanks on Etsy.)


My second current project is a pair of Honeycomb Wrist Warmers (fingerless mitts) and I love the Malabrigo Rios yarn I am using. Soft, soft, soft. 



And, at the SAME TIME, I am making the Lost Banner Hat from the Donegal Wool my daughter brought me from her trip to Ireland last year. It had not told me what it wanted to be, but after spending time in Ireland, seeing all of the knitwear people there wear, I realized the yarn was meant to be a hat. A hat it shall be.



And again, at the SAME TIME, I am making the Pure/Aran out of the softest non-cashmere yarn ever, WOOLFOLK FÅR.  

 AND, I am making, at the SAME TIME, The Joker and the Thief. How can I keep all of this straight, you might ask. I must be a genius, you say. Why thank you! I must be then!

And since we were talking about socks and walking, and I was, a while ago, here is some walking.

These are the Cliffs of Moher, and they are spectacular. You can walk for miles and miles along them, and the National Trust has put upright slabs of rocks along the path, about ten feet or so from the edge of the cliffs. However, the brave or the crazy, I'm not sure which, choose to walk on a well-worn path on the cliff side of the rocks. It is really windy up there, and I wonder how often someone gets blown over the edge. It must happen, just based on the odds with so many people walking on the wrong side. 
Not MY thumb.  I'm a better photographer than that!

Odd how the publicity for the place doesn't mention the falling off the cliffs death toll. 

 There are warning signs, but clearly, people disregard them.

And more walking---this time to get to the Carrick-a-Rede bridge. This is a better photo of it than mine was.

This is just a part of the long walk in to the bridge:


 And THIS is the climb down to the bridge. It was scarier to climb this than it was to walk on the bridge itself.


Carrick-a-Rede is at the very northern part of Northern Ireland, and while we were so far north, we went to a couple of towns, including Belfast. Kind of a strange place, Belfast. It's an industrial city with a huge focus on its past, primarily its wars. 

 This street is locally known as RPG street because of all of the rocket-propelled-grenades launched at it by the British, during the Troubles. The Troubles come up a lot.

And this photo is of the wall that separates Protestants from Catholics (? not quite sure how this all works out) at night. During the daytime, the gates are open so that people can go to work, school, run errands, and shop, but voters keep choosing to close the gates at night. Just in case???


This is one of two huge structures that were used during the ship-building era in Belfast. They aren't in use now except as a tourist attraction (? not that exciting, Belfast) since ship building has given way to the construction of wind turbines. Belfast is unaccountably proud of the fact that the Titanic was built there. Every tourist shop, every post card display, has souvenirs stating in some form or another:  Belfast --- Home of the Titanic. 


And now, for something completely different, but potentially not more cheerful than wars and deaths from falling off of cliffs, a sign in a tiny cemetery in a tiny town somewhere in The Republic of Ireland, aka (according to me), Southern Ireland.  

I think it's a DIY cemetery! Based on what I saw of Irish tv, the residents are really fond of reality tv.  Maybe this place will get its own show.  
Probably not.
I hope not.



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