Christmas Letter - Continued 2
During October we
held the "Stations"
at our house. Stations is a mass that is held
at a person's house and originated from a period when the catholic mass
was banned in Ireland. Father Leogue officiated the
service, and around
twenty people (local neighbours and family)
attended. Father Leogue also
blessed
the house. Afterwards a head table was set up in
the dining room and
the
remainder of the people ate in the lounge, followed by general chatting.
In
late October,
Melly and I decided to have a long
weekend in Connemara. This is a wild rugged landscape
to the west of Ireland. We took advantage of a half
price, two night
hotel and dinner package
at the Carna Bay Hotel, in Carna Bay, Connemara. We spent the first
night at a restaurant in Roundstone. The next day we departed for Cliften (the capital town of Connemara) where we did a little shopping
before heading for Cliften
Castle.
It has an illustrious history, although a little sad towards
the end. This castle hasn't been habited since 1898 and only
the stone
is left. Afterwards we left for
the
nearby "Seaside
Nursery"
where we bought two small palm trees. We returned
to Roundstone,
in the late afternoon and
visited the Bodhran Centre,
where they make the Bodhran (Irish Drum). Finally we made our way back to
the Carna
Bay hotel where
we enjoyed our free three
course meal.
Other news includes: Melly got a permanent
job at Lisaniskey School in January. It is a local primary school
about five minutes drive from our house. She absolutely loves the
job, staff and the well behaved pupils. Sorcha is growing up
fast and for those with children you will understand the concept of the
Jeckell & Hyde character of a teenager. She models herself on
the Emo culture and her favourite music is heavy metal. She is
doing well at school and is getting good reports.
I was impressed
that she obtained an "A" grade for Computing in her Summer report.
She has created her own Bebo site which is fairly sophisticated
in terms of technical ability and content.
New
projects that were completed / mostly completed this year include the
lawn mower shelter, horse shelter, strawberry
cage, tropical greenhouse, housing
palms, tree ferns, banana plants, orange trees, grape vines and other
exotics, tiled chessboard in the bar-b-que area and finally many fences
(to contain the horses) were made. A report on the
new tropical greenhouse and other projects will appear on the site
soon. Next year's big
project is the conversion of the stable building to a Keep Fit/Games
area, a workshop, a Computer Room (attic) and a storage area.
We
wish all our family, friends and site visitors, a Merry
Christmas and a Happy New Year.
