Old Cork...

We took a trip to Cork yesterday: I spent the afternoon with my sister and C visited a friend. I was partly going to visit an art exhibition. As we were walking over, I asked my sister about the Elizabeth Fort, since I'd spotted it the night before on Google Maps when doing some planning. She and her husband said that they'd looked at it once but it wasn't really worth visiting - however, as we were passing the bottom of the street it was at the top of (literally, Cork is full of hills), we swung by - and it definitely was worth a visit. It was a very grey overcast day just turning to drizzle and not very suitable for photography but we enjoyed a walk around the walls and they enjoyed picking out all the landmark buildings.

Right beside it is St. Fin Barre's cathedral - and the golden angel and just-turning beech foliage were a great match.

It was also interesting to see all the different rods used for cleaning and loading the cannon.

The top one with the hook was for cleaning out debris left from the previous firing. The next one down with the sponge was used for cleaning the barrel prior to re-loading again. The scoop was for putting in an accurate measure of gunpowder, and finally the ramrod was for tamping it in. 

Someone appears to think that good knots won't hold in the current windy season! This was the base of the flagstaff. 

I have often seen this vintage store as it's just across the road from where I used to get the coach when I was visiting my dad. I've even been into it more than once for a browse around, and I knew it included a coffee shop - but for some reason I never noticed the Italian coffee pot on the shop front before. With major roadworks on the quays it wasn't even possible to get a good photograph of it. 

No tricks, just treats

We were lucky enough to have a quick trip to Giverny this week. C found out he still had seven days annual leave which he didn't know he was entitled to, and with the luxury of being able to take a day off midweek we were able to check the upcoming weather forecast and  get super-cheap flights to Beauvais, from where it's only a little over an hour's drive. It was a wonderful sunny day, and we had a little mini-holiday. Since the option was a day-trip to Clare/Galway to look for more sloes which we don't really need, and blackberries which it's probably already too late for as it was an early season this year, I think we made a good choice.

Here are a very few of the photos - I have  culled my two-hundred and fifty or so photos into an album with just seventy-two  HERE if you would like to see some more.

This plant fascinated me. They look like something from a fairy garden. These open up onto a white flower, and then when the flower fades leaving a star-shaped seed head, it almost closes back up into a pod again. I think I took at least a dozen photos just of this one plant.

Botanic Gardens - floral

I'm so glad we got our visit in on Saturday. Sunday morning dawned (well, I can't say dawned, we weren't up that early) grey and dreary, and I'm pretty sure I heard rain at some stage too though it did brighten a little later in the afternoon.

Here are the garden, as opposed to sculpture, photos.

This month's blog header is a photo of a diver taken in Greystones last October.

September Favourites

Hmm - it seems to have been a pretty blaah month as far as card-making goes!  I did really enjoy trying Anita's book fold, which turned out to be far less complicated than I was expecting. Her pdf tutorial is found at the bottom of THIS post. I think the only things I did differently were to sponge the edges of the "pages" before assembly, and to cut a frame to use to neaten the top layer when the card is open.   The card with the reading owl on the front went to my book-loving niece along with an Amazon voucher. The Once Upon a Time card  - well, you know who you are! I couldn't find any suitable digital images to download for the front, so I ended up designing my own in GIMP - I've never used so many layers in my life before. The Irish Blessing card I made to give to Anita when I got to meet her - a memory of Ireland to take back to France.

Botanic Gardens - sculpture

Today was a beautiful sunny day with blue skies, so we took a trip to the Botanic Gardens in the morning. Not having checked first, we weren't sure if the Sculpture in Context exhibition was already open, and were delighted to discover that it was.  We didn't get the list of sculptures, so I am sure we missed some but we really enjoyed our time out.

Here are some of the best pictures of the sculptures - there are more in a Google Photos album HERE if you are interested.

My favourite was definitely the costume-jewellery bird, I took at least ten photos. And the felted wool hanging in the Alpine House was really beautiful too, but hard to get a good photograph of. The wicker people and the deer both melt into the background but were very effective.

I'll be back with some photos of the flowers in the next couple of days...