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Sparkle (3)
Hey there, everyone!
All the BlogHer fans and pans, shirkers and lurkers and everybody else...that means YOU, Virginia!
This is a post from last year when I first was doing my web site. I was looking at it tonight and thought I would re-post it for you. I love this postcard. It is SO homey, I want to move in, put apple pies on the window sills to cool and look out the back windows at the sunrise, knowing that a whole new day is beginning...AND...that I am so snowed in, I don't have to go anywhere or be NICE to anybody....even more importantly...
Nothing homier than a thatched cottage in Ireland.
When I was growing up, we went as a family to the New York World's Fair in 1965. Going to the Parker Pen Pavilion, they would let you file out a questionnaire with your name, address, likes and dislikes. Then a space age dressed Parker Pen lady, who looked sort of like an airline stewardess, fed your questionnaire into a BIG room size computer that would crank out a pen pal match from someplace in the world. It took a long time for the match to be made, the computer was so slow, probably twenty or thirty minutes. There were lots of kids and parents waiting around talking. The anticipation was all consuming until our names were finally called.
My pen pal was Jennifer Adams from Barnhill, Dundee, Scotland. I wrote her and I got a letter back! And this letter had a photo of Jennifer standing in front of her home which had a thatched roof. I have been in love with thatching ever since.
With the wonder of the Internet, not too long ago, I tried to find Jennifer Adams, and I found one in Barnhill, Dundee and I e-mailed her. I think this Jennifer Adams thought I was a lunatic. As she seemed to be a lawyer, I didn't press the issue. Jury is still out...
However, the ingenuity of thatching still fascinates me. What a frugal use of natural materials keeping one "mosty toasty," warm and dry. If it interests you, you might want to click here to visit a site with practical information for thatched cottage owners and "roof maintainers."
And so, without much of a segue between Scotland and Ireland, nothing to hold the connection together at all but thatched roofs, I make no apology and offer you one of my favorite Christmas traditions, the Irish Twelve Days of Christmas.
See what you think and if it cracks a smile:
Join Mr. Gobnait O'Lunasa who's writing his friend,
Nuala, about her lovely Christmas gifts.
For an attractive web site showing how to stay in an
Irish cottage on your next visit to Ireland, kindly click here.
If you like thatched houses, you might want to
preview Lida Bulf's book by clinking on this link:
Donegal Homesteads: The Disappearance of the Irish Thatched Cottage (Volume 1)
An Amazon reviewer says, "I have personally visited some of the scenes that Lida Bulf depicts in her new book and her rendition is spot-on. Most, if not all, of her subjects are from County Donegal's Inishowen Peninsula, "Ireland in Miniature," and her tasteful combination of cottages and flowers and plant life is inspired. I highly recommend the book and know you won't be disappointed."
