"So I'm here in Ireland! Finally had this nasty cold settle in my head/chest last night. Please pray for that. I hate colds. Today was spent figuring out the layout of the complicated manor house and trying to stay awake.
[Hurray for jet lag]
Here's a little reference info: The backside of the manor house, a couple flats [apartments] and the former carriage house form a square with a big courtyard in the middle (think carriages and servant chore areas) I'll try to get some pictures up to give you reference [see Facebook] ...
[Removed whiney paragraph about a sleepless night and the nasty cold the man on the plane shared with me. You're welcome.]
"Tomorrow we're getting up at 5am to head to The Ploughing (kind of a fair) minus the Scherrer family. Apparently there's only one van, so John (Drewstown House director) is driving the van and Robin (his wife) is being gracious enough to drive her own vehicle to bring the rest of us. Scherrers will stay behind to finish up some work since a couple of the rooms need to be done in time to be used on Friday.
On that note, I'm off to shower and head to what I hope will be a nice full night of sleep -at least until 4:30am."
[The Ploughing was interesting. The Irish love their agriculture, which is what the majority of booths/events/attractions were. We did get to see some sheep dog demonstrations, which were fascinating if somewhat redundant. We had samples of some Irish grown foods, chatted with a little old Irish rope maker, and let's not forget the parade of tractors. Did I mention the Irish love their agriculture?]
"Another beautiful day in Ireland!
Just wanted to send a quick hello and thank everyone for the prayers. My cold is MUCH better, enough that I got to help with the work on the manor house today. Spent the morning sealing cracks and holes in the walls of a room that we will be painting after the weekend. I was working solo, so I spent my time listening to one of my new favorite Christian groups who happen to be Irish. Check out The Rend Collective if you get the chance, they're good.
This afternoon was spend cleaning up in prep for the boy scout group coming to stay tomorrow night. I spend my time high on a ladder vacuuming up spiders and cobwebs. Definitely feels nice to have the place looking cleaner, even if the creepy crawlies will just move back in once we're done...
Tomorrow the team will head down to Trim to see the castle there. I've seen it, but haven't taken the tour. Since there's only one mini-bus (a van) and not room for everyone, I'll hang back at the house with Carole and the kiddos. I'm sure we'll find more cleaning to do."
...
"Another couple days of work done. Boy (and girl) scouts left Sunday morning while we were at church. After the service in Navan (in which our team doubled the size of their congregation) John and Robin took us out for lunch with their friends Martin and Jill who also live in a flat at Drewstown...
Sunday afternoon four of us wandered down to Girley Bog for a walk, which, after one wrong turn and several stops to eat blackberries, got us back to Drewstown in just over two hours...
Monday we were back working in the house. A couple of us began painting one of the rooms 'Scullery Green.' Apparently they're repainting all of the rooms in historically accurate colors, which means some interestingly named yet somewhat dull colors. But at least the walls are looking fresh again and mostly free of cracks/chips..."
...
"It is most decidedly fall here in Ireland. I'm seeing pictures of snow falling in Alaska and parts of Minnesota, so it seems cold weather has settled over more than just my little part of the world. However, ours comes in the form of rain. I'll have to wait until Thanksgiving to have my share of the snow.
We worked on the house for a bit this morning, but since we had an unexpected sunny day, we caravanned with John and Robin and headed for the Hill of Tara. Also called Tara of the Kings, the most straight forward way to explain it is tombs upon tombs. The sign said Tara was the "chief pagan sanctuary of early Ireland" dating back to "the late fourth millennium BC." It also served as the seats of the Gaelic kings. So quite a bit of history for a lot of grass. :)
...after Tara we made a stop over at the ruins of Bective Abbey, a smaller structure that at one time I guess was converted into a mansion, but now is just a shell of stone. Apparently a scene from the movie Braveheart was filmed in the little courtyard there... It was just good to take a break from scraping, painting and breathing dust and let the kids run around for a while. Don't think we'll get many more nice days like today, so we'll take advantage of them when they come."
And that's a good summary of the first full week of my adventure thus far. Lots of cleaning and working on the manor house with some fun mixed in. I'm sure there's more fun coming, so stay tuned...
No comments:
Post a Comment