A week later...

Hard to believe we've been back a week. I spent so much time uploading photos from Crete that I think I've gone off the blog project. My guess is posts will be occasional in the future, not daily. I think in the early days there was the occasional interesting insight on life in Ireland vs the U.S. Now it's more of a diary, which is slightly embarrassing--no one wants to read the minutiae of another person's life.

Highlights/minutiae from the past week:

I picked Maysie up at the kennel the morning we returned. The kennel is out in the country and a herd of cows was across the street mooing when I got out of my car. I asked the kennel workers if it were feeding time for the cows. They said that the cows were mooing at me. I know that cows are curious creatures, but I didn't know you could expect a chorus just for showing up. The man and woman who run the kennel, who don't live together, each have cows in the fields behind their houses. They each described how the cows look in their windows and moo at them. The guy said he goes out and feeds the cows toast. This is the kind of conversation that makes Ireland precious to me. The last time I picked Maysie up at her kennel in Pennsylvania, there was an awkward conversation re. the kennel owners' hobby, which involved racing high powered, gas guzzling vehicles.
This weekend, David painted our front door Oxford blue, a popular colour here. It looks great. I painted the front gate black. I'll take a photo once I delete Crete photos from the card for my camera.
On Sunday, David and I went cycling to Mahee Island on Strangford Lough (internet photo).

If you see a circle in the middle, that is the site of Nendrum Monastery, founded in the 5th century. The monastery came to an end at some time between 974 and 1178 (according to Wiki). The cool thing about the monastery is the use of tidal power to run the mill; the ancient turbines were in the water in the bottom left corner of this photo.

I'm in such bad physical shape that I didn't make it home. I sent David for the car after about 18 miles. The problem is my bike, which I haven't used in more than two years, has a very uncomfortable seat. My sitting bones get very unhappy the first few times I use the bike. So I sat in the lovely village square in Comber while David retrieved the car and then retrieved me.
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