Just A February Dip in the Atlantic

Approximately 28 years ago, an Anna was born in the Erinville Hospital in County Cork, Ireland. Many life events later, she returned to her homeland to finally experience Ireland as an adult.

Touching Moment Outside

Erinville Hospital

I have wanted to return to Ireland for pretty much my whole life. I decided that once I returned to Ireland, I would "baptise" myself as an Irish citizen in the Atlantic Ocean in Ireland. Now, with this 3 month house sit, I am finally back! So yesterday my mom and sister and I set out for the coast to do the baptism.

We found a beach near the town of Milltown Malbay, near Spanish Point on the West Coast of County Clare.

Beach

I was originally going to just wade out into the ocean, but Rachel found a little wading pool-type area which seemed like a better choice really, for picture taking and also to not draw out the "being in the water" part. I was a bit afraid that maybe I was going to chicken out at the last minute and not be able to shed my layers on the beach of the Atlantic in Ireland in the middle of February. I did not chicken out, but I didn't dunk my whole body and head in like I'd planned, because once I got in there, holy SHIT was it cold!

It may look like I am saying "Praise Jesus",

but that would be a wrong assumption.

By the time I got out I couldn't really feel my feet. My mom and Rach held up the "changing area" blanket for me as we'd planned, and honestly, once you've taken your clothes off and gone in, it's not that hard to stand around in winter on a beach without all your clothes on! It was actually kind of refreshing! But I couldn't just stay there standing around in my underwear all day, so I got dressed and held the blanket as a cape around me like the champion I felt like.

Champion

We then went into the town for celebratory coffee and warm sticky toffee pudding.

Why wait when you can

eat right away?

And so I am baptised.

A Green Mouthful of Mistake

Today there has been much productivity before leaving the house. Is that still impressive if you're not leaving the house until 12:45? I guess it's all relative. (I'm never really sure how to use that expression...)

At breakfast this morning my mom and I were discussing how to incorporate spirulina into one's food without having to put it in a drink. So we contemplated having a teaspoon followed by a big mouthful of oatmeal. And I thought to myself: it's just spirulina, just put some in your mouth, and have some tea. So I took a giant spoonful, and shoved it into my mouth. DISGUSTING! NEVER do this. I tried to wash it down with some tea, but there was so much powder I couldn't even make it work. And the tea didn't "wash it down", it just turned a bunch of it into paste! Thick, sticky paste. And the best part was that it tasted like an ocean floor. So my mom saw me struggling, and threatening to spit it all out, and kept telling me what a waste of money that would be, finally trying to make it better by giving me chocolate to eat with it. I tried it, and no. Just no. That stuff was not going to be swallowed. It mostly got spat out. It was like "Jackass" for health nuts.

We popped by our neighbour Brendan's house a couple days ago for tea, but he was busy renovating the house. And when he found out my mom'll only be here until Tuesday, he told us we should come by Sunday (today) for lunch. But then yesterday the airline she was going to fly with went bankrupt! So after a day of trying to sort all that out, now her flight is this coming Saturday instead. Now, because we are a bunch of neuorotic fusspants, we felt guilty for having Brendan and his wife make lunch for us under the (now) false pretenses of my mom leaving so soon. So I called him this morning to explain that she would be flying out a few days later, and so should we still come over? To which he responded by saying of course! Unless you have other plans? And he sounded a bit confused as to why I was calling, at which point I realized, it's just lunch, of course the plan is still on. "Oh, now you're not going until SATURDAY? And you were STILL going to come by for lunch?? What do we look like, your lunch slaves??? Call us back when you're actually leaving town! Better yet, never call us again!! .... *muttering*: 'of ALL the NERVE...'"

So anyway, it's off to Brendan's for lunch today.

Marching Into A Mess

Most mornings: sitting around with tea and other hot beverages for hours on end. Activities include: being on computers, stoking the fire, showering, and making breakfast. So Rach and I were feeling like right lazy sods, and decided to do something about it. No more getting up and lazing around, now we were going to start each day with a brisk morning Irish countryside walk. So yesterday morning we set out, still dressed in pyjamas, but bundled into coats. It was lovely, the air with that fresh feeling to it that only exists in the morningtime. We walked along for awhile, and came upon a field off to the left. Often these fields have barbed wire around them to imply that they are someone's private property, but this particular area had none. So we hopped over the ditch, and on into the field. We soon realized that this was a rather muddy field, not surprising, given all the rain, but we went further anyway, since we had our wellies on, and besides, we were not now the sort of people to let a little mud stop us, we were the type to go for brisk Irish countryside morning walks! There was another intriguing-looking area off further to the left, so we decided to head over to it, with myself in the lead. I got about three steps in when suddenly with one step I felt myself sinking extremely fast into the mud! This was very wet, very deep mud, and no sooner did I wrench that foot out of the mud than I was sinking with my next step! This continued for about four rapid and terrifying steps, until I found myself stranded on a safe little grassy mound, completely uninterested in going any further, and feeling rather apprehensive about going back either. So I stood there like a timid silly ninny for about half a minute, before Rachel convinced me that I would probably be able to get back without sinking, if I planned my steps very carefully. So that's what I did, and we tramped our way back to the road, carefully stepping on (by flattening) the coarse wild grasses that have sprung up in amongst the rather moist patches of more mossy grass. We could see the mark of exactly how far I had sunk into the mud on my wellies, and it was about an inch from the top. So that was lucky at least, that I didn't sink any deeper. When I got home, however, I realized upon taking my wellies off that there was mud caked onto my socks and my feet were damp, so maybe not thank god for wellies after all......

So all in all, going for a walk first thing in the morning was a good thing, as adventures probably build character, and are certainly more invigorating than sitting around with tea for hours. And besides, we arrived home with energy, which translated to sauteeing some breakfast veggies and cooking eggs.

Adventures in Scalp

Today Rach and I went for a walk. First walk in a while, tsk tsk.... Many more will follow! First we came upon a forestry road, which we walked along for awhile. We saw to our right, a little ways in, a magical wonderfully mossy green carpeted, rather organized-looking forest, so we hopped over the creek and made our way in. Here are 2 pics of it, it was so fairy-tale looking.

In the summer it seems it would be lovely to go in there and have a lovely picnic on the mossy green carpet in amongst the trees... So then we left that area and headed back out onto the road. We came upon some cows, which we were trying to communicate with via moo-ing. When that didn't work Rach started jumping up and down to get them interested in coming over, but instead succeeded in terrifying them so that they all ran at an ever-increasing clip into a nearby wooded glen of sorts. The poor things do not react well to jumping jacks, it would seem. They were still hiding there when we were returning home from our walk. When we got to the river over the bridge we had a "Winnie the Pooh" race (where you drop sticks on one side and see whose gets to the other side of the bridge the fastest), but the river was so fast and our sticks were the same colour as the river, so we lost track of them and went on our way. The little black and white dog down by Ned's house followed us on our walk once we got to his house, and in fact followed us for the rest of our walk, including all the way back to our house. He's still here, and if he doesn't leave soon, we'll have to drive him back home because we can't feed the cats while he's here.... We call him "the suicide dog" because he likes to lurk on one side or the other (depending on where the car's coming from) of Ned's van, and then race out right as a car is driving by, to chase it down the road. The thing is when you're driving it looks like he's running practically right under your car, so a lot of people (including us) slow down when we get near Ned's house, so as not to accidentally kill the poor thing. He's a very happy dog, very sweet, but I hope he's gone now so we can feed the cats their dinner.....