Ireland Day 3 8.31.08, Poulnabrone, Burren

Megan and I are installed merrily in the Cashel House Hotel in - you guessed it - Cashel! We are overfed and tired from our stupendous day. We left Doolin and drove past the Cliffs of Moher to St. Brigid's Well, a miracle site attributed to St. Brigid. There we had a time of great emotion and longing, as Megan tied her mother's Irish lace handkerchief to the shrine, and we said prayers for our beloved dead.

We drove toward the sea and walked down the strand beside a lovely graveyard, near Liscannor, where we met a kind nettle-gatherer and dog rescuer called Dierdre. From there we travelled up the center of the Burren to Kilfenora, where we stopped for some potato soup in a lovely pub called Linnane's Irish Traditional Music Pub (too bad they weren't playing any at lunchtime heh heh - too interested in the football!). Then, a bit more north, I navigated us and Megan drove us to Cathair Chonaill Stone Fort, where an archaeological site likely to be a tomb was being excavated by a group of volunteers, including a professor from the University of Galway. They showed us a newly-found coin from Elizabethan days, as well as a pre-historic burial, chert pieces, and lots of pig bones. Megan was very very happy!!!

Reluctantly we pulled ourselves away and continued north to the Poulnabrone Portal Tomb, a megalithic masterpiece - four upright pieces holding a huge capstone that, like Pentre Ifan in Wales, used to be surrounded by a mound. There we were able to get close enough to the ground on non-privately-held land to be able to photograph lots of gorgeous Burren flowers, including campanula, bedstraw, meadowsweet, my friend the hart's tongue fern, and several other sorts of fern poking up out of the grikes.

We spoke a long while to a nice ranger who is sad about the 1 per cent of the 1500 visitors a day who pick flowers and take away rocks and deface the monument :( he says tour buses come in and he sees people taking bouquets of orchids away... *shudder*

The Burren is a truly astonishing place. How I wish I could bring Mom here!

Reluctantly again we moved Northward, but soon we were enchanted by the incredible views of the karst-rock hills with pastures leading right up to the exposed rocky hilltops. Lunar landscapes indeed.

We rounded the last Burren hill and entered Galway County, following its coastline around inlet after castle after inlet until we passed Galway town and came out into Connemara. On the way we passed the huge Connemara Pony Show and a long line of horse trailers. Sigh.

Then we entered the peat-and-heather-and gorse laden Connemara landscape that looked to us very like the Scottish Highlands, rolling hillocks, lochs, rounded female-looking mountains, sheep on the verges of the roads, lowering clouds with brief appearances by the round sky orb we call "The Yellow Thing" so as not to frighten it away. I only got us lost once on the long way up here - I swear there was no sign- really- and we finally arrived at 8. Megan looked at three different rooms before she settled on this third-floor one with ocean view.

Our new mottos, to help us not freak out while driving on the opposite side from usual on narrow roads with fast Irish drivers:

"Cuimhnigh a analaigh". (Pronounced "KWEEvnich uh aNAlig" - this means "Remember to breathe" :). The other is "Agus na scaoll" (AH-gus na scoil) which means "Don't panic!"

Of course there is no internet here :). So it is text-phone-blogging time for me. Will upload pics in Dublin I guess at the end of the trip.

This hotel is quite posh, and we are debating whether or not we should stay, but we are certainly here for one night and maybe two. On the grounds they have many famous gardens, including a rare tree collection, a heath garden, natural woodlands, a tack shop and a Connemara Pony stud farm. Ahem.

See why we want to stay? *enormous grin* But one thing is sure-we won't eat in the hotel's Amazing Restaurant again, even though they have a glorious harpist... And five courses ... And different china for every course...cause, well, we didn't know it was quite that posh :) Pub dinners from now on.

It sure was fun tonight though, we had a perfect meal, and sweet Megan even got me a champagne drink with strawbewrry in it. She is most thoughtful to have arranged this entire trip and to drive me everywhere and put up with my navigating and occasional white knuckles.

Tomorrow we may have to go see some ponies...Cashel House Stud is a famous and many-ribboned farm. *gleeful grin*

Love,

The Irish Adventure

Saturday Aug. 30 in Ireland

Megan and I arrived in Doolin in utter joy and checked in to the Cullinan's Restaurant and Guesthouse where we were immediately greeted by a calico cat and a donkey :) Megan then drove us all the brief way over the Burren to the Cliffs of Moher . . . ohhhhhhh . . . they literally take the breath away. We climbed all over Hag's Head. Megan had to hold my hand at one point as I had a serious attack of vertigo. While she clambered a bit farther I say on a muddy hillock and got misty. It was so stunningly beautiful, with the crashing waves and the seabirds below us . . . utter joy!

We reluctantly came back to the Inn for our stupendous dinner. We are putting Megan to bed early to try to help her jet lag. And I am obviously computing heh heh :)

Really looking forward to botanizing in the Burren tomorrow.

Oh -Megan says I have to say that today I remarked, after buying songbooks, and passing by the Hobbiton-like Celtic Jewelry Store that had closed: "I'd rather have ballads than jewels."

Made it to Ireland

It is midnight at the Park Shannon Hotel.

Left St. David's a little before 8am in the mist, arrived here also in mist. I am absolutely wrecked and won't write much-just to say that while Terry rested his sore hip after our dinner at the Farmers Arms last night, Tallis and I walked the dark mile down to Porth Clais in perfectly gorgeous, mysterious, muffling mist. We had an excellent talk. It was one of the best things that happened on the Moore Trip. I will always remember it, and I charged him to as well. Sitting over the river on the stone wall was ...well ...sacred.

It was very hard to say goodbye to them today. We were quietly affectionate on the train, playing our last game of Ipod Scrabble . . . I miss them so very much.

But here I am about to start a new adventure... After as much sleep as I can get! Good night...

Perfect Last Day in Wales

Easy lovely day. It began most touchingly, as I received a beautifully-calligraphed package delivered to the cottage from Carmarthen- Dr. Garlick had sent me a volume of his poems!!! It got here in less than a day, because the inscription said that he enjoyed our talk yesterday so much. And OH! What poems . . . I read them all through while Tallis took his shower . . . I could not be more grateful. What a lot of work for an eightysomething gentleman (on crutches, no less) to do for me. Love him.

We walked a mile to the Coast Trail, out our road and down to the bay, and hit the trail. I was overcome with delight at all the pretty wildflowers, and the glorious cliffs and surf and gorse and heather and ponies and rock walls and wheat fields and lovely red and blue rock and caves. The boys were very patient with me as I took picture after picture. We walked clear around the head, enjoying the views of Ramsey Island, and the nursing baby seal, with her Mum and Dad, in one of the the little bays, and the sand beach that I threw a wishing rock from, and the wonderful sea wind and the actual SUN that showed its face for the first time today (!). We didn't say much, just peacefully walked, and breathed, and I could hardly wipe the wide grin off my face, the entire time. Pure joy. Perfect freedom. Sacred quiet, even when we chatted. Flow. We have gotten to understand each other's rhythms in a new way, this trip, as our little comunity has been so close. Eating all meals together, going to sleep at the same time (what a concept), a gentle symbiosis. There have been no disagreements, no drama, just much laughter and many whole-making silences. When we get tired, we just seem to get more kind.

We had a sweet time in Saint David's Cathedral, seeing it at its best with actual sun filtering in. I prayed in the prayer chapel, and said the Pilgrim's Prayer by the bones of Saint David, lit candles for my beloveds, and said hello to Giraldus Cambrensis' tomb. Then I sort of drifted, just enjoying the rare and sacred beauty of Wales' most sacred Christian shrine. A small silent retreat. Cathedrals always make me think of Madeleine, of course. I met up with the boys eventually. Terry was sitting quietly in a pew, looking contemplative and listening to the organist rehearse. I came up and gave him a long holy kiss. We are feeling very tender here.

Then we walked, not saying very much, home to Amber Cottage, and got ready for a nap.

My feet are really painful, but I am doing what we call "Pulling a Sylvia", and just telling them to be quiet when they scream at me. Kila asked about my blisters, and I said I was ignoring them, as how many times in a lifetime have I hiked the Coast Trail? This would be the third. She asked Terry, who was beginning a nap on the bed, an hour ago, "Is she always so ridiculously cheerful?" And he said, sleepily, "Quite often". :) She told us when asked that we couldn't pay with a VISA . . . so I volunteered to go into town for cash.

I hobbled up our little street, leaving the boys asleep. I desperately want a nap too (would be the first on the trip), but someone had to go get the cash to pay Kila tomorrow at 7am. And this is fun, renting the town computer, hee hee.

Soon I shall go out into the rare and glorious sun and go wake my beloveds, and we will probably eat at our favorite pub, the Farmer's Arms.

God bless all who read this, may you too find surprising peace inside you today.

He was there!

Dr. Raymond Garlick was there at The Ivy Bush in Carmarthen, and we had tea with him and a lovely chat, and I am incredibly grateful for the opportunity for me to thank him for all he did for me so long ago. And to tell him about The Current Career - turns out both his kids, Angharad and . . . was his son named Iestyn? are both in film! I am going to search IMDB for them :) He gave me his address to keep in touch, and Dr. Jon Dressel's, and Malcom Gilbert the Soviet Studies and Geography teacher, and Ian Lloyd-Davies the Outdoor Pursuits teacher . . . and we talked about poetry and Dylan Thomas and Bryn Myrddin (though it is privately owned and you can't go there, it is near Abergwili, a little beyond, on the Llandeilo Road . . .) and the time he was at a P.E.N. meeting and met President Carter and loved him (he delighted Dr. Garlick by casually walking into the room and saying "hi" so unlike the Royals), even though he did not buy Fern Hill Farm after all, as there was a crisis in the Balkans, and . . . oh how can I speak of such a glorious and happy meeting? He gave me so much encouragement as a young would-be poet. The poems I wrote with him as my tutor were some of my best.

Then we went to the Dylan Thomas Boathouse in Laugharne, seeing his very writing hut (used to be a garage) and were most inspired, and had a simple lunch of Cawl and Brod :), then we drove to Pentre Ifan burial Champer on top of the Preseli Hills where the stones for Stonehenge came from . . . amazing . . . we tried to get into a nearby Iron Age reconstructed hill fort, but just missed it at 5pm.

Drove back to St. David's via lovely Fishguard, admiring the hills and sheep and horses and hedgerows and gorse and seabirds, and stunning sea views and tiny lanes beside sheer 12' hedgerows and one-lane passes through stone walls and tiny towns. . . Wales. I love it so, and it means a great deal to me to be able to share it with my beloveds. Wish Theo could be here, but of course then it would be about "Crazy Golf", as they call it here, and not so literary :)

Now we are about to either go play Scrabble, or go for a walk if my blisters will cope (they are a bit worse every day despite many blister protections I bought at the chemist).

Tomorrow is our last full day here. We think we will not drive any where, but walk the coast trails and fully grok the Cathedral. Then they come home to Theo and I join dear Megan in Ireland . . .

More pictures tomorrow if I can find a connection somewhere . . . if not, not till Ireland.

Bless all who read this!

Trinity College Carmarthen *sigh*

Amber Cottage, St. David's