Greetings from a snowy country,

I am sitting on the dresser in my (our) bedroom.  Let's take a poll.   Mark and I have an argument going.  If I am talking to a third party I refer to things Mark and I share jointly as "my."  If I am talking to Mark, I refer to them as "our".  I believe that when I use the term "our" it includes all parties to the conversation.  And since the dresser upon which I sit is not any of yours, it must be "mine" not "ours".  {Hence, when we are together and talking to a group of people about the house we live in, Mary will refer to it as "my house" rather than "our house.  What am I, a squatter?!}  So, what do you think.  Vote with Mary or vote with Mark?  I promise to take fewer than 37 days to count the ballots.  {And if you vote for me, I promise full employment and vastly increased social spending.}

Anyway, I am sitting on a dresser in the master bedroom of the house the Roddys rented in Limerick, looking out the window watching people trying to make it up (and down) the hill.  It is a bit icy and a bit dicey, I am afraid.  This is not a particularly steep hill (I'll leave a space here for my husband to fill in the slope {IV}).  Nevertheless, they are a-slippin' and a-slidin' out there.  I am sitting in the window {_our_ window!} anxiously awaiting the return of my husband {_her_ husband!} of 17 years, today.  He {_they_!} is out touring the countryside with my sister {_your_ sister!},  Tori, and my 2 nephews {_ya'll_ 2 nephews!}, Ben and Joe.  They {_we_!} left this morning for Blarney Castle, when the forecast indicated things would be improving.  However, I {oh, never mind} am afraid that the anticipated thaw has not materialized and now the roads are pretty slick.

We did not have a white Christmas, but on the evening of the 27th, the snow appeared.  We got maybe an inch (I'm being generous) over night and on Thursday, things warmed and most of that melted.  However, on Thursday evening another inch or so appeared, and has pretty much stayed.  Our roof is still snow-covered.  Tori, Ben and Joe took the train to Dublin on Wednesday morning and returned Thursday evening and I was so glad they had taken the train and not tried to drive, as from all reports, the road conditions were pretty bad.

Ireland is not a snowy country, and is less well equipped than Seattle to deal with the effects of the winter white stuff.  For example, there are no snow plows and no one has chains or studded tires.  How do they deal with it?  I regret that since we do not have a TV, I am unable to report whether the local equivalent of Dan what's-his-name and Kathi Goertzen had a special 4:30 edition of the news, and to what hill-top they sent the Irish equivalent of Jim Foreman.  Poor me, … the cultural vacuum.

Melinda is out at a birthday party.  Since Mark is out with my sister and her boys and I have no car, the birthday boy's dad came and picked her up, but I fully expected Mark to be back for the 5 p.m. pick-up and it is now 4:50 and I have no idea how I am to get my girl.  Being Mary Jane Brown's granddaughter, it is not in my genetic make-up to relax at times like this so you are getting all my worrying.  Here cone 2 more cars, could one of them be the Punto?  'Fraid not.

We are unfortunately limping by on one car, even with our company.  They arrived on December 22 and we worked out a travel agenda that would have either Mark or I driving them out to see things and the other one home with the kids for most days, leaving all the 8 person travel sites for the 29th thru the 31st.  They didn't reserve a car ahead of time and when we called to get a car, there were none available in the greater Limerick metropolitan complex.  And since I am not terribly fond of the snow, especially in a lightweight car where the steering wheel is on the wrong side, Mark is the designated tour guide.

7 January 2001

They made it back.  A few days ago.  Actually not long after I stopped writing{at 17:04, to be precise!}.  They said the roads really were not bad, except when you got right to our neighborhood.  I guess if there is a hill in Limerick, we are it, and we are perhaps a bit further from the moderating influence of the River Shannon than other parts of Limerick.  It is interesting.  {It was indeed!  I have exercised all due caution when dealing with the ice and snow and a car full of children.  And yet there were a couple of occasions when I would approach a turn onto a side street, let off the petrol good and early, begin to turn the wheel into the curve, and then watch as we slid right on by.  With no snow plows, no sand, no chains and very little traffic, the snow is simply compressed into lanes of ice.}  The drivers in this country are not what I would consider particularly good drivers, as a whole.   However, the consensus appears that they are overly conscientious in snowy weather, which is not half bad, but does tend to slow down the traffic.  Hence the late arrival.

Let me give you a run-down on Christmas in Ireland, interspersed with accounts of the Adventures of the Prestons.  Tori, Ben and Joe arrived about 2:00pm on Friday, December 22.  As we drove home from the airport, Ben asked what the plans were for that afternoon.  Having made that flight myself, and having greeted a few other guests at the airport, I knew there was but one answer to that question, "You're going to sleep."  Tori was practically asleep in the car, but Ben laughed me off with a "We gotta get out and see something!"  However, 10 minutes after we hit our front door, he was inert on the couch and remained that way for about three hours.  But by the time dinner was done,  he was ready to go out for a pint with his uncle.

Saturday Tori, Ben, Joe and I went to Rock of Cashel and Cahir Castle, our closest, big-name attractions.  Sunday I took the Prestons to Kilkenny, the medieval town.  There were lots of shoppers looking for ye olde bargains.  It is a neat town.  We saw the home of Dame Alice Kyteler, a witch from the early 1300's.  We also went to St. Canice's Cathedral, but unfortunately, being Christmas Eve, the round tower next to the cathedral was not open.  (I think the sexton was none too pleased that I had the American audacity to ask to see it on such a religious occasion.)  I found it quite interesting to see the cathedral ruin at Rock of Cashel one day, and then see an intact cathedral of similar vintage the next day.  Ben also found a book honoring war dead in the cathedral, and eerily enough it was open to a page in the "P" section which held an entry for a Benjamin Preston.

We went to Christmas Eve Mass and while the church was crowded, we learned (after we entered the church) that, unlike at Assumption Church, one does not need to arrive an hour prior to the start of Mass, probably 20 minutes would be sufficient.  So we had the church to ourselves for quite a while.   We had also gone to Mass Saturday evening, to fulfill our Sunday obligation, and Tori was amazed to see the communion line-up is essentially a free-for-all, just get your body {and blood} out there, because nobody will stop to let you in.  (I guess we even stopped noticing that in the time we have been here.)

We had a quiet Christmas at home.  Emm and Garth awoke at about 3:30 a.m. to find that Santa had arrived and filled their stockings!  Mean old Dad, however wouldn't let them wake every one else up, and made them go back to bed.  But there were plenty of presents to open when the "real" morning finally arrived.  Emm and Garth got cameras, which will be great on our trip through Europe.  And they're small enough they won't be a pain to get back home.  We have too much stuff!  And it's stressing me out, but I guess it will all work out.

Tuesday, Tori, Mark and Ben went for a hike in the Galtee Mountains.  I'll leave a space here for Mark to fill in the details.  But he'll probably forget to tell you about the Wren Boys, so I'll remind him for you.

{Ok, so, I guess this is my bit here:  Mary's sister, Tori, told us when she said that she was coming that she would like to climb an Irish mountain.  She has been climbing and hiking back in Washington and wanted to add an Irish peak to her list.  Well, the highest place in the whole country is Mt. Carrauntoohil at just over 1,000 meters.  By western US standards, this is not very high but things are different here.  For one thing, when you climb a mountain, very often you just drive on out, find a nearby place to park and head on up.  This is not to say that people do not prepare or that they don't take it seriously; they do.  There are terrific books about and societies devoted to walking and hiking in Ireland and I am realizing that the beautiful and eminently walkable countryside is something I will miss most when we leave.  The thing is that there simply aren't many trails.  Hiking in Ireland is much more line of sight, seat of your pants kind of thing than it is in the American northwest.  I think that maybe some of this has to do with the fact that we have so many extensive forests (despite the Forest Service's best efforts) covering so much of our mountains that trails are a practical necessity.  Search and rescue guys have day jobs after all.  Here on the Emerald Isle they don't have many forests left (The British beat the Forest Service hands down.) so visibility is dramatically better.  You just keep heading toward the high part.

So that's pretty much what we did.  I wanted to climb Galtymore.   It's a high spot on a long east-west running string of hills called the Galtee Mountains.   Mary got a "Best Hikes in Ireland" kind of book from the library, I borrowed another and talked to a man who has climbed the thing.  We looked at several different approaches, routes, and so on In the end, though, we just drove on down, spotted what was probably the mountain and drove toward it along a likely looking little road just east of Kilbeheny.  Along the way we stopped to take pictures of the spray painted sheep.  Tori even freed a little one that was stuck in a corner of a field, its fleece caught in some thorny bushes, I think.  Its fellows had all run off when we stopped for the photo op but this one remained, thrashing about a little bit but unable to free itself.  When Tori approached it got more serious about its thrashing and pulled free.   We gathered up a bit of the wool as a souvenir and drove on.  Soon after this the road became a track and looked as though it was heading down into a farmyard, so we decided to park.  We got out of the car around 10am, packed up the last minute provisions we had procured in Mitchelstown, (for those of you who are reading this with your trusty atlas close at hand) and set off.  We passed by what had once been an active farm but what was now just a set of outbuildings, and continued along a forest road.  We met a few sheep roaming the roads but we pushed on and soon came to the a place where the road doubled back.  We continued on cross country toward what we assumed was Galtymore.  For the next mile or so, we walked along a steep and open hillside heading toward a bowl formed by the twisting ridgeline.    We could see now that there was a heavy dusting of snow all along the top and the higher we climbed the colder it got.  Down to our right was a beautiful little stream and at one point we could see the outlines of what must have been a stone fence forming a paddock for the sheep.  This really was sheep country and we kept surprising small groups of them as we made our way along the hillside.  We crossed dozens of little and some not so little gullies carrying water down to the valley and the stream below.  I was wearing tennis shoes and would have been soaked through in short order if it had not been so cold.  This was December 26th, St. Stephens Day in Ireland, and it was well below freezing so we were crunching through and slipping on ice rather than sinking into bog.  The skies while not clear, were not threatening.  We made our way, sometimes along sheep trails and sometimes not, up the western side of the bowl, heading for a high point that we assumed was Galtymore's little sister, Galtybeg.  ("more" means large, sort of, and "beg" means …small.)   We stopped several times to add layers of clothing as we climbed and the temperature dropped.  The wind was also becoming a factor as we neared the ridge top.

When we got to the lower summit we could see a pair of peaks further to the east.  In retrospect these were probably the actual Galtymore and Galtybeg.  But who knows?  We had a fine hike regardless.  All along the last half mile or so, we had been walking through snow and ice.  At the top we were faced with a long stone wall running along the ridge line for what appeared to be miles.  It was encrusted with snow and ice and made quite an impressive sight.  Tori dubbed it the Wee Wall of Ireland and I'm sure it does its job holding back the hordes of invading Mongol sheep.  At this point we could see that the north face of the ridge was a very steep slope down to the plains below.  The contrast between the icy ridge and the green fields below 3,000 feet below was striking.  We walked west along the ridge to a higher point marked by a tall stone cairn.  Here we took the obligatory photos (click and click)  and then turned back.  Before descending we hunkered down by the Wee Wall and had a bit of chocolate, bread and water (turned to ice water actually!).  Then we turned down hill and were soon back among the sheep.  We made it back to the road by 3pm, and found the car waiting about where we had left it.

We drove back to Mitchelstown and found a pub where we stopped for refreshments.  After the pub we wandered down the town's main street.   Tori was in search of postcards.  We went into a small store and were looking around when a band of children erupted from the doorway, literally running up the aisles toward us.  They were oddly dressed.  One little boy had a pair of junior sized tights pulled onto his head, legs dangling down like ears.  They all had smudges of dirt or make up on their faces.  They ran toward us laughing and reciting some poem or verse at very high speed and shoving plastic bowls at us.  It was clear that they wanted money.  Indeed, they expected it and we should be quick about it.  I had some spare change and so gave them each a few coins.  They ran off to find their next marks.  We had no idea what this was about but when we got outside we found that there were a few more groups of children and some adults dressed likewise and accosting strangers up and down the street.

We learned later that these were the Wren Boys.  I know just enough of the story to do serious damage to it so here goes: Saint Stephen was imprisoned somewhere and was due to be executed.  His guard was asleep and Stephen was about to escape when a wren called and awoke the guard.  Stevo did not escape.  Since then it has been legal to hunt and kill the wren on St Stephens day.  Children would find one, kill it and then go into town to sell the feathers which, oddly enough, would bring good luck to the buyer.  The money then would be given to charities, I think, or at least that is what the Wren Boys are supposed to do with the money gotten from American tourists wandering through small Irish towns on the day after Christmas.  Apparently this is a dying custom and we were lucky to have seen it at all.

We returned tot he car and drove home, arriving in the late afternoon.  It was an excellent day!}

As I said, Wednesday and Thursday the Prestons went to Dublin on the train and we hung around here.  Friday there was still quite a bit of snow so they just cruised around downtown Limerick.  Saturday was the trip to Blarney Castle and the Blarney Woolen Mills for a bit of shopping.  OK, they did more than a bit!  But they enjoyed themselves.

Sunday the snow had melted sufficiently that I was willing to venture out.  I took the Prestons to Ballybunion, a town in northern County Kerry on the Atlantic Ocean.  We had a nice drive out along the south side of the Shannon.  The day was windy and cold but somewhat sunny and the tide was quite low so we had a wonderful walk along the beach.  It was fun to find shells I had never seen before, at least not in their natural environment.  We also ran across a group of many, many horse-riders assembling for some sort of ride.  There were a number of adults on horses, but probably 3 times that number of youth on ponies, many decked out in quite the fancy riding attire (the youth, not the ponies).

After we left Ballybunion we retraced our steps partway, until we reached Tarbert, the southern end of a ferry line which crosses the Shannon into County Clare.  We had about half an hour before the ferry was scheduled in, so we stopped for a bite to eat at the Ferry Bar, which wasn't at all like what two San Francisco girls would think of upon hearing that name.  We got in line for the ferry and watched her "dock."  This consisted of little more than approaching the cement ramp and tilting down one end for the cars to drive off, and on.  We are so used to the super ferries on Puget Sound and it was fun to note the differences between those services and this.  For instance, cars loaded and unloaded simultaneously.  Also, on the big boats in Seattle, the deck crew carefully directs the cars in order to keep the weight of the boat continually in balance.  Here cars fill up the first column on the left of the deck and then begin to fill up the next column to the right.  There are 4 columns, each of which would probably hold 13 or 14 cars, and I imagine that in the summer the boats probably are full. On our voyage, however, we had about a column and a third of cars.  The crossing, which took about 20 minutes deposited us in Killimer and we drove home with a shopping stop at Bunratty.  Tori couldn't go home without a bit of crystal, after all.

That brought us home for an exciting evening of board games to ring in the new year.  And with no TV, I’m afraid we couldn't even catch Dick Clark's New Year's Rockin' Eve.  It was not a horrible evening as far as the over 40 crowd was concerned, nor for the under 12 set, but I'm afraid Ben and Joe got something of the short shrift in the celebration department.

We had a quiet week, just doing some preliminary packing and cleaning.  We had an unexpected visit from my Seattle neighbor, Grace and two of her sisters.  They had been down to Killarney to visit two cousins and stayed one night with us on their way back.  It was so nice to meet the sisters and especially to see Grace and catch up on all the happenings in the neighborhood.  {Unfortunately, I forgot to take pictures!}

On Thursday, I finally got to court.  I had wanted to just go and have a peek at the judicial system in action so I went down to the courthouse and sat in on the proceedings.  The court I found myself in was dealing with low-level crime, drunk and disorderlies, driving without insurance, minor thefts and burglaries.  The judge looked exactly like a friend from Seattle, Pat Corr.  He wore no wig, but did have one of those funny, British-judge ties on with his robe.  Most of the evidence was presented by Gardi (the police) who swore themselves in on the bible.  They probably went through 10 or 12 cases in the hour and a half I sat there, most were pretty boring.  However there was one case about 3 lads (appeared to be age19 or 20) who had been out one night when a Garda came upon them, and found them drunk and disorderly.  The Garda asked them to go home.  One lad did, and so did not find himself in a courtroom on a chilly January morn.  However the other 2 refused and the Garda was forced to call for backup to bring the lads to the pokey.  One resisted, and managed to bite the back-up garda.  All this evidence was related by the initial arresting officer.  In his testimony, the garda also indicated that he felt that the biting defendant was genuinely remorseful, that his parents had been to see him and that this was unusual behavior for their son, and they would do all in their power to see that such behavior would not soon be repeated.  The defendant did not speak in his own defense, but his advocate (solicitor?  barrister?  I'm not sure of the man's title) did, again stressing the out of character nature of the offence, yada, yada, yada.  He probably spoke for 5 minutes.  The judge would have none of it.  He said that if the defendant had not pled guilty, and found himself convicted at trial, the judge would have sentenced him to the maximum allowable.  As it was, the judge would not abide any leniency in sentence for such a serious offence as a biting assault on a member of the gardi.  The non-biter got a sentence of a few days jail time, but the biter was sentenced to 4 months in jail.  An officer of the court signaled to the young man to step forward to be taken into custody.  "Your honor, please," appealed the defendant's solicitor.  The judge again spoke with the arresting officer who felt that the defendant deserved leniency in light of his remorse.  The judge talked to the prosecutor (I can't speak for Irish courtrooms in general, but in this room the prosecutor appeared to be a senior Garda) who said that the prosecution would not have any objection to a lenient sentence.  The judge couldn't find anyone in the room to agree with him.  He finally relented, suspending the 4-month sentence contingent on 2 years good behavior, but stressed that this suspension should in no way be taken as a precedent, and similar cases in future would be dealt with in the most severe manner possible!  The kid certainly had someone looking out for him, and I hoped it scared him straight.

Yesterday the Roddy family again drove out to Ballybunion, as Mark and the kids had yet to see it.  On our way out we saw a beautiful rainbow over the Shannon, a full 180 degree arc, along with an almost complete secondary rainbow outside the first.  The tide was in so there was much less beach available for walking, but we still managed to amass quite a collection of shells.  On our way home, we stopped at Carrigfoyle castle, a beautiful ruin.  The castle originally was on an island in the Shannon, but little remains of the island, and if one stepped out the door on the back-side of the castle, one should be prepared with a towel.  The stonework in the castle is exquisite and unlike any we have seen yet.

Only 2 more weeks here.   We're starting to plan our trip to England and Italy.  It is exciting but a bit nerve wracking.

Talk to you later.

Slan,
Mer