Sunday Thoughts

It’s time for another Sunday Thoughts blog post. It’s hard to believe that it’s the middle of June already. The year is flying! It’s been a whirlwind of a week and there were times that I felt like my feet didn’t touch the ground.

We celebrated Andy’s birthday and our wedding anniversary. We don’t usually go out to dinner as a family, but as it was a special birthday we wanted to do something nice. I don’t think we’ve aged too badly looking at the pics above.

It was my mother’s 6^th anniversary of her passing on Tuesday. It’s a mix of emotions. We didn’t have the easiest relationship, but in the last few months I’ve heard things about her dad’s side of the family, and I discovered that she was only 24 when her dad passed away. I know she adored him, and it couldn’t have been easy for her. She had a young child at the time too and wasn’t long out of recovery for TB. So maybe that was the basis for some of her issues. It’s certainly making me think differently about things. I can’t turn back the time, but I can try to understand a bit more.

I took a spin up to Belcoo on Wednesday morning. Since Brexit happened it’s been difficult to order some things from the UK. Many places won’t deliver to Ireland. Belcoo is in Northern Ireland, so it’s part of the UK, and there’s a place called Border Parcel Motel, that’s a handy service and I had things to collect from there. I’d really recommend them; they will also forward on parcels to anywhere in Ireland. You can find them on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/borderparcelmotel

I also want to give Belcoo Pharmacy a mention. I went in there to buy a gift, and they are so friendly and welcoming, they even wrapped up the gift for me, and I enjoyed a lovely chat with the lady who served me.

On the way to Belcoo I stopped at Milltown Wood, it’s just outside Manorhamilton and is one of my favourite places. It’s just so peaceful there, and because I was there early in the morning, it was just me and the birds. The photo at the top of the blog is the Chapel of Ease in Lurganboy, just down the road from the wood. It’s 160 years old and is the last tin church left standing in Leitrim. 

I went home via Rossinver and stopped to visit a lovely couple and record a podcast, you’ll hear that in the coming weeks. I loved the directions to their house. “When you see the donkey, turn right at the crossroads!”

Onwards to The Ballagh Centre, I hadn’t planned this stop, but my friend Olivia works there, and I decided to put her on the spot and record a podcast with her too. You can listen here, or below. It’s lovely getting back to podcasting again, I’ve really missed it.

We went to The Glasshouse for dinner on Thursday night, it was the first night of their North Carolina BBQ Experience, and it was wonderful! I’ve written all about it here.

On Friday I went to lunch with my friend Sian and her friend. It was an early birthday celebration for Sian, and it was in Cawley’s, Tubbercurry. It was lovely.

To finish off a busy week I went to a watercolour painting workshop as part of the Yeats Festival. It’s been so long since I’ve painted anything, and I miss it, so this was something lovely to do. It was so relaxing, just trying different brushstrokes and not being under pressure to complete a painting. It was lovely hearing the children singing in the room across the hallway too.

Today is Father’s Day. It’s not something that we really celebrate, much like Mother’s Day, it’s kind of like a day for the card companies. It’s also very close to Andy’s birthday this year. So, it’ll be a quiet day. My own dad died in 2009, and he didn’t like celebrations very much.

I must tell you about my new top! I’m not fashionable at all, but I saw Kerry wearing a dress by Popsy, and I loved it, so I went to visit their website. They have really quirky clothing, and I treated myself to a couple of tops in the sale. I put a pic up of me wearing one and I’ve had so many people commenting about it. Here’s the Popsy website, so that you can have a look. https://www.popsyclothing.co.uk/

I think that’s all my news for this week. I don’t always have such a busy week, thankfully! Next week is quieter. I have a blood test on Tuesday to see what my B12 levels are like, I still feel wrecked, so we’ll see. We have an exciting day trip on Thursday, but I’ll tell you more about that later.

Thanks for reading, and special thanks to the lady who sent me an email to say she really enjoys the Sunday Thoughts blog posts. It’s lovely to hear from people, so many read the blog, but not many leave a comment, or contact me, so that was really nice.