Thursday...

Just a snippet today because I was busy writing yesterday. I'm into chapter 8 now and have introduced most of the main characters, and have several potential conflicts heating up. Onward!

Today's picture: a landscape shot taken from the top of Knowth, looking westward:



Back to work!

-GRG

Tuesday...

A little writing Monday, but none so far today. The weather's relatively mild, so I've been doing outdoor things: moving most of the plants out the cold frame into the sun for a while and doing some garden cleanup.

Saturday is the Colorado Welsh Society's Saint Dwynwyn's celebration, and I'll be doing some storytelling as part of the program. Since Dwynwyn is the patron of lovers, I'm planning to do "Pwyll and Rhiannon". This will require a little practice, as I haven't done it before! First step is to re-read the story a couple of times in translation...

Back to the Boyne for today's picture: another river shot showing some of the meadows along the north bank.



And that's it for today.

-GRG

The Bend in the Boyne

Still researching. I don't seem to have a good distance shot of Knowth, which is the location currently occupying my attention, but here's one of the Boyne, looking upstream from the footbridge at the Brú na Bóinne Visitor Center.



Only +4 F. this morning, and it might even get above freezing today!

Back to work.

-GRG

Calan Gaeaf

Happy (Celtic) New Year - today is the First Day of Winter in the old Celtic calendar. It's not particularly wintery today - warmer than the middle of last week - but the cold will come. I spent part of yesterday clearing stuff out of the garage to make a winter home for the rosemary bush. This is more complicated than it used to be, because it (the rosemary) is now so large that it requires the use of the garden cart to move it easily, and this in turn takes up more room. However, the clearance was long overdue and beneficial, involving boxes that hadn't been touched since I moved here in 1997. I found some photo collections which I need to scan this winter, which I hope will include some British landscape photos I took in the eighties and nineties - more stone circles.

Another picture on the Samhain theme:



It's the eastern interior passage in the mound of Knowth - a gateway to - where?

-GRG

Monday morning...

First, today's picture. This one, I imagine, needs little introduction: the tour guide called it "the most photographed rock in Ireland."



It's the entrance to Newgrange, of course.

Why were we in a tour party? Because that's the only way to get admission to Newgrange and Knowth. It's run through the Bru Na Boinne visitor center, and the number of people who can visit during the day is thereby strictly controlled. A much better way of dealing with things than the free-for-all at Stonehenge, in my opinion. Coming early on a wet Wednesday in October, we had no problem getting in.

October it is again, but neither wet nor Wednesday. Autumn is cooling down slowly and reluctantly here, but at least the nights are getting colder. Still no frost, and probably not for another week. The squash and the Brandywine tomato are still trying, but the rest of the garden is pretty much done. Biggest gardening accomplishment for the weekend was re-potting the rosemary shrub, which took two of us to accomplish. This is a plant which I grew from a culinary cutting which rooted, and have had for over fifteen years. At this point it's better described as a bush, and bringing it inside for the winter is not done lightly (pun intended!). Fortunately it can stand a mild frost, so I have a little time yet.

Not much new on the writing front - hopefully next week end (a three-day one due to the Columbus Day holiday) will be better.

-GRG