St. Patrick's Day and other

Last Sunday, we took the dogs to Banna Strand (beach), the one that's very near to us. They enjoyed the walk, although I don't think they really understand the significance of actually getting to go to the beach! (These are "non-professional" shots - as we used to call them in our photography club, these are record shots - and that is not a compliment!). The one with MFE in it was obviously taken by the pro, but with the little camera!

Several of you emailed about St. Patrick's Day. Well, ours was pretty low key, as we were both fighting colds and coughs. There was actually less hype here than in the US. I told one of my clients, an adult with Down Syndrome, about some of our traditions; his response to green beer was "that's disgusting"! Every little town (including as small as Kilflynn, our first little village) had their own parade. I was doing therapy in Listowel that day. It was raining (they say it always rains on "Patrick's Day" (as we familiarly call it here!), and I decided to skip the parade and go home. Well, nice idea, but I got caught in traffic, and ended up being happy about it, as I saw the parade! I took pictures out the car window. In deference to truth-in-advertising laws, I must tell you that I got a digital camera for my birthday and these pictures are by me, the non-photographer, as opposed to all other beautiful pictures on this blog by our resident professional photographer! Anyway, here's the parade! Note in the last picture, the leader is playing bagpipes. Much to our suprise, these are a regular in Irish marching bands. The theme of some of the others was history of Ireland, which was interesting.