Daisy chains, a cashel and an amphibious bus....all in a weekend's work

Daisy making in Crawfordsburn. I went there with the boys after we weren't able to do anything at Helen's Bay because it had been cancelled at the last minute. But we went to Crawfordsburn Park instead and just hung out for a bit. The grass was smothered in daisies.


Oisin asks me to make a daisy chain...


Ghin loves sticks. He just grabs them and start swatting them at anything that moves. Here he is doing his Herne the Hunter impersonation.


The flower of summer, the bellis pernellis...


Look at that... what a smile. I think it's always best to see children in as natural an environment as possible. They always looks so at home there. I have never met a child who never took to the outdoors, even the ones who go eeeEEE! mud... after a while they are rolling in it.










By the muddy slide in the park... amongst the trees. It was one of those perfect lazy, hazy summer late afternoons...



So, on Sunday, we headed to Drumena cashel. It is an early Christian farmholding with a souterrain - that's an underground chamber to you and me. It is located near the Mourne, between Castlewellen and Kilcoo, just before Lough Reavey, all places i had never heard of before this Sunday - Catlewellen, of course being the exception. As i drove past Castlewellen, i realised that i had never been beyond it in this direction.

When we got to the cashel, which took AGES to located since it isn't marked or directed, so asking around as required, and not many people knew about it, and got out of the car, we were greet by the sight of a red kite flying towards Lough Reavey. I was agog with how large the bird was. At 5 and a half feet, its wingspan is taller than me.

Anyway, i'll talk about the Drumena Drama later on...always a drama...


That's the entrance to the souterrain, one of them. They used it to store food and stuff and themselves, when the Vikings were attacking.




Ghin shows off Lala and Rascals bear


Look at Oisin's face - he's all growing up isn't he?


I'm soooo bored now mummy....






Mournes in the background - that's Devil's bite.


We then climbed the hill behind the cashel. If you look to the right you'll see a wee green gate. This is the gate that Ghin bashed his head against and blood then came pouring out of his head. It was delightful.


I do not have any photos post the big bang.




Lough Reavey...that's the view on the other side.


Ghin dreamily contemplates the view.


Oisin is come on now let's play hide and seek...

Here we are in the Belfast duck. An amphibious bus.

Waiting for it to go...

On the river...

Life is full of amazing things…and this weekend past we had our fill. I cannot tell you how shocked I am that a whole week has passed since The Incident. It has just flown and I have found the ability to be happy NO MATTER WHAT.

It’s kinda like having a superpower. J

And the secret to the superpower are the boys. Look at them. And I don’t say it in this puffed out parent, look at my boys kinda proud. I say look at them the way the earth would say, look at the Mourne mountains? Aren’t they magnificent? There is no boast in it. How can I not be happy for them or because of them. To hang on and savour every single moment of life while it is still being lived and while I can still do it. That must be gratitude.

There was this really good discussion on Radio 4 today – that Mervyn King show…can’t remember its name. It was about this guy, Henry James’ brother who was talking about the essence of religion – and it was excellent. The closed mindedness of intellectualism today is slowly being found wanting and people are now saying, there must be more. It can’t be quantifiable, but it doesn’t make it any less real. What was also fascinating is it also shows up the sort of corruption of people searching for a spirituality today – compared to the way people threw themselves into discoveries and their beliefs in the past, we now ring fence it with everything. The health and safety agenda has pervaded every aspect of our lives, so much so that we are unable to abandon ourselves to the impossible and improbable, making it paradoxically possible and probable….

Both not even sides of the same coin, but the same thing, just switching backwards and forth.