Ring of Kerry 02/07/06

We were taken around the Ring of Kerry by our friends Patricia and Kevin Griffin. Patricia is the parent with whom I had the very first phone interview, and she was also present at the videotape interview. She and Kevin drove us back from the airport on the day we arrived - so they are the ones we knew best, and we were very lucky. They were great tour guides, having both lived all their lives in the South Kerry area. They felt that we definitely needed introduction to South Kerry, as we have spent most of our time up to that point in North Kerry - and there is a bit of rivalry! We drove to their house in Glenbeigh, between Kilorglin and Cahersiveen- and what a beautiful beginning. Their house is on a mountain side with a gorgeous view of mountain, ocean, and an old castle ruin. Kevin drove the entire ring and they both narrated for us. We stopped at many points and Dana had a field day of picture taking, so here are a few. The bottom picture is in front of the pub where we ate lunch in picturesque Waterville; you see Patricia, MFE, and Kevin. They are also with MFE in the top right picture,on top of the mountain.

Kerry Down Syndrome Welcoming Dinner 30/06/06

Hope you will note that I now (usually) use European style for dates. That has been a learning curve, but important, as it really confuses everyone if I do it the other way! These 4 pictures are from the welcoming dinner that Kerry Down Syndrome held for Dana and me. It was really wonderful - over 60 adults attended, plus at least that many children. It was at an historical hotel (in an old manor house) in Killarney, with beautiful grounds. Dana also took pictures of the surrounding area - lots of sheep, but I haven't included those. I am showing you one of the food tables just to give you an idea of what an elegant event it was. They had more people than expected, so actually ran out of food, but the hotel was very resourceful, so everyone ate! The picture of me with the kids is funny to look at now, as I know them all well. That night, of course, I had no idea who they were!

Fenit Harbor

Since I don't seem to be able to predict the order that these pictures appear, I will do a few entries on each post. These three are at Fenit Harbor on Tralee Bay. It is one of our favorite near-by spots. We started there in clouds and rain, had a cup of tea, and came out to bright sunshine - not uncommon, as we now know! Up on the hill over the harbor is a statue of St. Brendan, who is a local hero. (MFE in yellow rain coat). The light house - at first almost invisible in the fog, then later, bright and beautiful. And, finally, a longer view of the harbor and all the sailboats. This is the main sailing harbor in the area, as well as a port for commercial fishing.

Beautiful scenery at last - courtesy of Dana

On left - Ardfert Cathedral. On right, beautiful coloring of many buildings here; these are as you come off the cliff walk in Ballybunion.

The cliffs at Ballybunion, one of the beaches very close to us. They aren't quite as spectacular as the cliffs of Moher, but pretty close! Also, the beach is big and beautiful, and there's a great cliff walk.








The view from the cliff walk at Ballybunion.












Well, these are still coming up in reverse order, and I can't figure out why. I will stop for now. Hope to have time this weekend to learn more and get better. Despite the order, I hope you like them!

More pictures

1. The 2 pubs in Kilflynn (Parker and Cronin) side by side!
2. MFE at the turn to our house in Kilflynn - cemetery at closed Protestant Church, across road from the 2 pubs.

3.The road in to Kilflynn, our first home; turbines on hill were our touchstone and landmark
4. This is the first walk on a beach - between Camp and Castlegregory in late June.Okay, these are on here, but came up in reverse order, so now I'm going to try a few new things - hope I learn this before the 2 years is up! The network is not letting me upload any more - so 1 more day before you get beautiful scenery - although these aren't bad.

First try at pictures

1. Dana, Jeannie, Mick - Chicago before flight
2. Shannon airport - Patricia, Ciara (recruiter) MFE (jetlagged)

September

Well, the big breakthrough is that we now have internet access at home. This should help with communication, with updating this blog, and with finally (soon) getting pictures on the blog.

September has been full, as all months seem to be. Some highlights:

* I (MFE) went to a speech therapy workshop at the University of Limerick. It was on Eating Drinking and Swallowing (as we call it here). The presenter was Suzanne Evans Morris from US. It was a great experience. I stayed in a nice B&B, met some nice people and good contacts, and enjoyed talking to Suzanne. I went on the bus, which was fine, but was offered a ride home by a new friend, which was even better!
*This Friday, driving back from Cahersiveen, we had our best rainbow day! We saw 4 or 5 different rainbows, and one was spectacular. It was a complete bow, ending at the ground on both sides of the road. Dana says we not only found the site of 1 pot of gold, we found 2! Even more amazing, on one side it came down in front of the nearby mountain, so that you looked at the green of the mountain through the dark, bright colors of the rainbow. And, even better, it then bent across the flat field and came toward us across that field - an amazing sight!

*Yesterday (Saturday) we went to the Listowel Races. Every town here has its own race course and racing sessions. We kept meaning to go to one, but didn't. We were advised that the Listowel races were not to be missed - in fact I cancelled therapy in Listowel that day! So, we went, and had a good time. Dana won a few, not quite breaking even, and I did even worse. However, we enjoyed the event and the horses. Neither of us has been to many horse races (Hot Springs only once, many years ago), so we were really novices. This race is not Ascot, although some people were dressed up quite a bit. This was more a common man event - in fact its called the Harvest Festival and was traditionally a celebration for the farmers at the end of the season.

*We had hoped to also go to dog racing, as Down Syndrome Kerry had a fund-raising night on Thursday - however, that go rained out. This in itself is amazing, because if they called things off because of rain most of the time, nothing would ever happen. However, Thursday was the heaviest, steadiest, and longest rain we have encountered here, and resulted in cancellation.

*The big personal event of September - we moved into the new house. It is 2-story, 4 br, 2 ba (sort of - one is downstairs and in 2 sections!). There is a nice living room, a dining room/den, an office/therapy room, and a kitchen. We have an Amana fridge, which we were excited about, but it has had some problems. We think it's working okay now; our repairman is the coach of the Kerry Minor League Football team (more in a minute on that) so he was relatively unavailable during our need! Our landlady and landlord are really nice and willing to do anything we ask, which has been great. We have a back garden (yard) which will be okay for the dogs, and they are willing for the dogs to come into the house. They are buying us a shed, which we'll use for storage and for the dogs we think. We are within walking distance of town centre.

*The big local event this last week was the Gaelic Football All-Ireland Match - in the seniors County Kerry played County Mayo. This is a huge even here - most houses and cars fly the green and gold colors. The trophy is the Sam Maguire, and people here talk about "Sam is coming home"! Well, Sam did come home - Kerry trounced Mayo to the delight of most of our friends. The Minor League (younger players) match was the same day and Kerry & Roscommon tied, so had a play-off game yesterday and Roscommon won - I guess 2 wins would have brought the county to a stand-still!

My work continues to evolve and I am gradually getting the schedule better arranged so I'm not killing myself (and doing a less than best job!). Having therapy here at the new house on Wednesday is a help. We are also looking at changing one of the further away places to fortnightly, and I'm going to a couple of schools to see kids instead of their coming to me. All in all its going well. I really enjoy visiting the schools and plan to blog later this month about what I've learned about the education system. I hope by then we'll be putting pictures on here so I can show you pictures of some of the schools.


More later. We may try to add pictures later this weekend!