Castles, Sheep, Lakes, Fires, Love

I just got home from our first retreat, where we go away from a few days with Doug to get outta the city and retreat from work. Generally when there are the usual 7 YAVs here in Belfast it is a time for them all to spend a few days together. Even though we do live together, it was nice to be away together for a few days. We went to the Crom Estate in County Fermanagh. The Crom Estate is a National Trust property, and is an old estate. There is a castle, the remains of the original castle, stables, and guest cottages where the servants would have lived. We stayed in one of the wee cottages and it was precious! The property is on the Erne lake and the Earl of Erne still lives in the Castle! A real Earl and Castle! All my silly high society London books are coming true. We wanted to go knock on the door and try to get invited in for tea. Hey, he could have a son and I would die to live in that castle! haha.

We stopped in County Tyrone on the way, at a Cairn and a very old graveyard. We saw a pre-Christian grave at the Cairn with a great hike leading up to it. All the oak trees have been removed, so planned forests have been built in many places around Northern Ireland. The rows of trees were really cool to see. The best part of the forests was the ground. Now, you have heard me rant about the greenness of this country. But this, the greenness of the Forest floor was amazing and is worth yet another mention. Mostly woods in the states are floored with dirty, pine straw, and rocks. The whole forest floor was green with grass and moss at all places here in County Tyrone and Fermanagh. It was amazing. Dark, kinda creepy, but green. I don't know how the chlorophyll works in the deep shade of the fir trees, but it was amazing. In the grave yard out in the middle of now where, there were headstones dating back to 1734! Before America even existed! How cool is that.

We saw amazing sites, from pure green countryside to ruins of castles and the many lakes of Fermanagh.We even crossed into the Republic twice, so I can now officially say that I have been to Ireland! It was very interesting to see the border towns, and to hear about to politics of each. The police in most of the towns have moved out, commuting into the towns for work. The PSNI (police service of Northern Ireland) is still pretty unpopular around the edges. I saw tons of sheep, sat by the fire, checked up on elections in the States, and even ate a few smores. They don't have graham crackers here, but you use digestive biscuits and they are just as good! We made a turf fire, burning sod like they would do in rural places where wood is expensive. Turf has a pretty distinct smell, think dirt smell, and burns for a very long time. It was cool to have a different kind of fire. My friend Gary has invited me to some kinda fire later in the year that is some sort of celebration. I still am unclear of exactly what he is talking about, but he mentions it frequently. When Doug asked us if we had heard of turf fires I said I thought I might have been invited to one, thinking of Gary's invitation. He laughed and then when he told us what a turf fire was, we all laughed. I had kind of a blonde retreat, not too common of me, so very entertaining!

Overall it was a wonderful three days! Mom and Anne fly in early tomorrow morning! So there is still much excitement to come this week (and another trip out of Belfast-I promise I do actually spend time in the city....) As always, there are more pictures on the my pictures link.

Lastly, one of the best things that we saw were Yew Trees. The two Yew trees on the Estate property are the oldest in all of Ireland. They were the perfect climbing tree! We had a good time climbing and sitting in their branches, even Doug! I will have one of these trees in my yard when I am old.