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§ November 28th, 2008

It's been a hectic week. Well, couple of weeks - I turned 40 which was great fun - my husband threw a party for me in the local tennis club, complete with 80s playlist and lots of food. It wsa brilliant. I have spent most of the month of November doing
Nanowrimo ( I am hopefully going to finish today, I have less than three thousand words to go, however everyone is choosing today to drive me slowly insane and constantly ask me dumb questions...so we'll see.)
I'm busy editing a poetry anthology which also looks like it's going to need some TLC over the next week; and on top of all that is the usual work/life stuff. Oh and Yule/Christmas - which is madness in itself.
Still, it's nice to be busy; I hope to take the camera out over the weekend as we're going to Top Gear at the RDS on Sunday.
There's a great new photography exhibition on at the moment in Stoneybatter at the Joinery -
Giita Hammond which we're going to the following Sunday; it opened last night. Really looking forward to it, it's "Vanishing Landscapes" and is centred around the vanishing glaciers of Iceland.
§ November 21st, 2008

It's such a grey day, I did what I usually do on days like this and searched through the back catalogue for photos that cheer me up. I had forgotten this one, I may even have posted it or a similar one before but hell - this is one of my favourites so I'm posting it.
I've been doing
Nanowrimo which is great fun but tends to use up all the time and energy I can spare from work. Also have some poetry coming out this month in an journal and busy editing the PPP first anthology - we hope to have it out just before yule which is ambitious!!
Ah well, time was meant to be squandered and no nicer way to do so than looking through photos...
§ November 20th, 2008
§ November 18th, 2008
§ November 14th, 2008
§ November 7th, 2008

And we've definitely crossed into winter. The same trees I was photographing only a few days ago has lost all its leaves now; it's dark when I get up and dark when I leave work. But on the plus side, I'm 40 tomorrow and we're having a party :) :) Light a bonfire against the darkening year, or in my case "years" :)
§ November 6th, 2008
§ November 5th, 2008

As I approach forty....
This photograph was taken among good friends, in a remote place (Sanday. Orkney) and reminds me of good times and friendship, my spiritual beliefs, magic, wonder, fun and laughter.
The candlelight and medieval food, lovingly created by a good friend, represents my love of history and joy in the past.
§ November 1st, 2008
§ October 31st, 2008

Well this is Samhain;
Hallow'een for the general public, the eve of All Hallows or the christian feastday of the dead.
Samhain for some of us, the ancient festival marking the beginning of Winter and the need to prepare for the dark half of the year. At Tara and the Hill of Ward fires would have been lit and from these the chains of bonfires across the great central plains and out to the furthest reaches of the country, or so the poets tell us. The gathering at Tara at Samhain brought together clans for horse trading, games, arts, marriages; the ancestors were honoured and the gods, and the chieftains and the fosterings and alliances. Divinations were made, omens examined.
Over the centuries the christian associations (Feast of the saints, all souls) has beome conflated with the original ideals of Ancestor, and the sense of a liminal time. But underneath the games and the ghost stories, you have the ancient and enduring.
I love the ghostly and ghoulish and the mischief; I also love the older philosophies and tonight, I'll be reaching out to my ancestors, as they once did to theirs...
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