Heritage Weekend

Ah, it was fabulous. Storytelling on Friday night with Ellen Walsh and Neily Bohane, with tales of messages in bottles and holy wells and kings with horses' ears. I was dazzled. Then bee-tales on Saturday morning with the infectiously enthusiastic Tim Rowe: I loved all the evocative language around bee-keeping - hollow trees and virgin queens and princesses. I was idling around 'princesses' for a children's story, when Tim said 'and then the princess kills all the other princesses by stinging them through the side of the cell'. Sheesh.

Skib's play on Saturday evening was a fast-paced farce 'A Wake in the West'. Packed audience, belly-laughing throughout. Extra applause for our own Donagh, who was especially great :-)

The Craftey Market yesterday was a blast: gorgeous maps and metalwork and art and sausages and treaty cakes and coffee and Nosey Rosie and wool and of course, lobster pots :-) I was totally enchanted by the unspun hand-dyed wool (from the sheep of Inish Beg) that was being teased into yarn on a traditional spinning wheel, and I was given a selection in gorgeous colours (soon to appear in a textile hanging near me - thanks, Sandra - so generous!). All the ladies got a delivery of ice-cream (thanks, GP - Paddy was a smidge doleful!), and the Fabulous Sharon Rose gave me a hat-decorating lesson - I was *so* absurdly delighted with myself.

Then sunshiney pints and dinner and late-night pints.

You know that whole 'you don't know what you've got till it's gone' tendency? Well, I rarely suffer from that - I tend to treasure stuff as I go along, from the joy of having a good hot shower to not having a toothache. So I've appreciated this community throughout, but coming up to leaving, its delights are especially moving. Glisteney, in a Paula Marten-shimmery-sequin kinda way :-) Over the weekend there were social invites to sing-songs and writers' sessions, and conversation kept weaving back to me, leaving. Range of reactions from a strident 'And what about the Drama Group's Summer Production???' (thanks, D) to 'This is very sad. The end of an era, really' (thanks, G). And gentle suggestions about alternatives, if I decided to stay. And slagging. And much support.

Photos are gonna take a while, but this'll get us started :-)



Thanks to all, for a fairytale weekend. Quite magical.