Tuesday, December 22, 2009

the past few weeks, and snow!

Jeff: A long time with no posts. As we’ve settled in fewer things have become notable and with the holidays community life has grown busy. Our home life is going to change as well. The home coordinators for our house decided to take a break. This creates a hole in the house which the community has asked Chelsea and us to fill, at least temporarily. We are not going to assume the role of “home coordinators” which are the people that take full responsibility for a house. But our duties will be expanded and we are moving into Rainbow House. So we must bid Lilac Cottage goodbye and move on to the big community. Though it will be sad to depart from our newly christened abode, we are happy and excited to join community life more fully by actually living in our house! We’re happy to make Rainbow even more of our home and become closer with all of those living there.

Notable adventures to date.
Monday, 4 Mondays ago – Chelsea and I took a car and headed out to Eniskillen, a town 30 miles south of the community. The day was beautiful and clear. After exploring the town and the castle, we went out for a hike. The hike was straight up a hill that overlooked Lough (pronounced loch, don’t asked me why…) Erne. The views were spectacular, we could see all the way to Donegal Bay. Then we went to see some old statues in a graveyard, they were ok but what was even better (for Jeff anyway) was seeing pheasants!! We saw 4 roosters and a hen. Terribly exciting!
Thursday, 2 Thursdays ago – We needed to pick up some people up from the Dublin airport at 11:30 and bring them back to the community. We were able to get off early so we could make more of an adventure about it. We had a map and a GPS (just in case) and headed off to find the ocean, something that we hadn’t seen yet. After driving for a few hours in fog along meandering roads that most often lead nowhere, we happened upon an unmarked little beach just before it got too dark to see. It was beautiful but not exactly picture taking conditions. Then we got to have a night in Dublin: walking the streets, shopping and eating. It really got me in the Christmas spirit, with the lighted streets, street musicians and young carolers in Santa suits, the mood was right on.

Chelsea: And today, snow! We awoke to a perfect snowy sunrise, and took a little longer than normal walking to the house. These Irish are all tough with the rain and wind, but put down three inches of the white stuff and everyone freaks. Many people wouldn’t travel today because of it, and all of a sudden everyone is wearing ear flap hats even though it’s not any colder than before. Don’t get me wrong, the roads are treacherous enough without the ice, and I guess I understand. We do not even have shovels in the community, so the shovelers had to grab the scrapers from the farm. Jeff and I have been feeling very smug about grabbing snow with our bare hands (aren’t we wild!) and giddy from it all. This afternoon there was a Christmas carols celebration in the hall, and greeting everyone at the door was a four foot snowman with pine for hair, apples (one yellow, one red) for eyes, and an onion for a mouth. Now I just hope it can hang on a couple days so that we can enjoy a white Christmas!

1 comment:

  1. Happy Birthday Jeff, hope you can take time to celebrate amongst all the celebration.
    A true orienteer dosn't need GPS.

    Eric

    ReplyDelete