NorthDownMuse

Donegal Day 1

I am off the next two weeks and absolutely delighted. Monday I hosted book club so was busy all day mowing, watering plants, hoovering, food shopping, tidying. The nine of us had a good conversation about The Sixteen Trees of the Somme. Tuesday morning I played with my buddy Patricia.

Golfathon part 2

I attended the Junior Cup match on Friday to be a ball spotter. Because it's a shame to lose a match b/c you can't find your ball and have to take two penalty strokes. Sunday I played in the Minor Foursomes. My partner and I

Golf-a-thon

We are coming into competition season. Beginning the week commencing Monday, 13 May, I was scheduled into four competitions. So the first two weeks of May have involved a lot of golf as I try to work out problems like topping the ball. Our course is in woeful condition and

Synchronicity

I was born in 1962, which means I turn 62 this year. I'm taking that as a sign it will be a phenomenal year. The festivities began a week early with the trip to Mount Stewart (see earlier post). This, my birthday weekend, began with dinner at an

Belfast Exposed

Today I went to an event at City Hall organised by Friends of the Earth. City Hall has a grand staircase. And the city crest is in the carpet on the landing. The event consisted of four short films about environmental issues in Northern Ireland – organised along the lines of

Macabeanum

Today I played golf in the morning with Patricia then visited lovely Mount Stewart in the afternoon. The McCabe rhododendron (Rhododendron macabeanum) is my favourite and it is in full flower. Each truss of flowers looks like a wedding bouquet to me. This variety is native to northeastern India and

Decades digitised

Hard to believe but it has been just over a decade since I began this blog. Amazing. In that time, I've obtained three visas, UK citizenship, a UK driver's license and a graduate degree. I've bought and redecorated an Edwardian house. I've

Decades erased

Lola and I worked together at a newspaper in Kansas City in the early 90s. Since then, we corresponded by handwritten letter for many years. Then it became the odd email. But we never lost track of each other as we moved to successive cities. Two years ago she moved

A lively bunch for brunch

A lot of the week following my return from Spain was getting ready for an Easter Sunday brunch I hosted for six. Two grocery stores, one bakery, one florist, one wine store (champagne). Clean the house, polish the silver, mop the floors, on and on. This arrangement was moved elsewhere

The marvelous month of March

Not one but two holidays this month! On 18 March in the wee hours of the morning I collected Patricia and we drove to Belfast Int'l airport for a 6:30 a.m. flight to Alicante. From there an hour in a rented car to her apartment on

Interstices

The nice thing about returning on a Friday is you have the weekend to catch your breath before getting back in the 9-5 saddle. It was really cold when I returned so I built a fire. It was really lovely to come home and be out of my normal routine.

Adeus Porto

Dara's flight left earlier than mine so I went walkabout on another fine morning. The city hall above sits at the top of a long hill bracketed by stately buildings. Yesterday and today I enjoyed hot chocolate and pastries in two of the 100s of cafes along the

Final day

Sadly our trip is coming to an end. Rain was predicted today so we started in the National Museum Soares dos Reis. On the way there, I snapped this lovely building. My favourite painting was a self portrait of of Aurélia de Souza done in 1900. "Unanimously considered a

Douro Valley

I wasn't able to take the bike tour with Dara outside of Lisbon because the fangs of the cold were in deep. But I have come round enough that I joined her on a 6-mile hike in the Douro Valley, where port wine is produced from a wide

Adeus Lisboa

I went for a long walk on the final morning of my stay in Lisbon. I continued to take photos of tiles. Because of the endless variety. I have not spent as much time noting here the filigree of wrought iron on the windows and doors. Or the beautifully carved

Tile Town Two

Today we had the leisure of no schedule, no timetable. We meandered our way up to the Castelo de Sao Jorge, a hilltop Moorish castle and ruin visible from throughout Lisbon. Dara has spent a lot of time in Morocco and told me a bit about the influence of the

Tile Town

I've never seen so many tiles in one place. They are on the buildings: In infinite variety. They are in the churches, illustrating the lives of the saints. They take many forms, such as these polychrome tiles: And then there are the public squares. Not knowing Portugese, I

Lisboa!

I left my house at 11 am Friday, after an early walk at Cairnwood with Paddy. My 4pm flight out of Dublin was delayed until 6:45pm or so. The plans laid out in the last post (bus, walk, metro, walk) were scrapped given the late hour and the misery

Pre-Portugal

We left off on Wednesday 21st Feb, when I was going to try to stay in. Haha. A friend invited me to a golf show at the Europa Wednesday night, where we picked up brochures from lots of golf courses in Ireland and entered to win rounds. We ended up

Meet Up

After my Derry sojourn, I did take on the spindles. So far, 18 of 26 painted. Not my favourite job, so very pleased with progress. Am also progressing on my will and giving myself big pats on the back. I find it hard to get beyond the basics (job, walk

The Book of Kells

I have taken this week off work, partly to use up vacation before the 1 April beginning of a new vacation year (I'm using my last week off in March). Partly because the year has been off to a hectic start and I want some down time. But

02

Two highlights of the past week were meeting with a solicitor to work on my will – something that has been on my list of things to do for eight years now. Second was dinner with Eddis and Patricia, two of my favourite people in Belfast. On Friday I had a

Winter golf

Friday night was the Winter League dinner. I'm not sure how our team did overall – Patricia's team won with a very strong group of players. My contribution to the evening was 120 golf balls I picked up on the course in recent years. People can buy

Christmas party postponed

I had a week and a half between my return from the US and a trip to London for a delayed PRI Christmas party. During that interlude, I played golf a few times, met a few work deadlines, cleaned the house, walked the dog – in other words back in the

H2BH2

This is Happy to be Home, part 2. September was part 1. Mom's neighbours, the Moores, drove me to Columbus Thursday morning, then a flight to Newark, then another to Dublin. Flight two was delayed so missed the bus I booked to Belfast. So booked another, then booked