We’re Back in Ireland

Posted on May 31, 2012 by

1

(We didn’t take think it was worth the risk)

We’re back on Irish soil again and for a few days it’s been very hot and sunny. Today is rainy but I have high hopes for tomorrow. I also have high hopes for getting back to regular blog posting. Like any habit, it takes a period of time to build and no time at all to break. Fortunately, I really do want to write so I’m at an advantage when it comes to being willing to build the habit. I’m very willing.

2

(Last week in Edinburgh)

I’m at a bit of a disadvantage when it comes to actually starting the habit though….. I have a long history of thinking about doing things. Including considering doing things. Then there’s meaning to do things and feeling a bit guilty that I haven’t done them. Followed by downright embarrassed when I’ve completely forgotten to do something and it’s too late to do it then. I feel some of that guilt and embarrassment right now as I ponder my lack of doing and it doesn’t encourage me, no, not one little bit.

3

(Right in the centre of the city of Edinburgh there’s a beautiful park)

Fortunately, I’m not going to be putting my attention on the times I didn’t do something, that’ll just get me more of what I don’t want. I’m going to be putting my attention on what I do want – I want to write. Oooh writing. I love to write. It’s just sometimes I forget how much I like it. I forget how it clears my mind and brings me calm. I forget how it makes me feel sparkly inside! I forget how it communicates with me and makes my experiences richer. I forget how it pushes me to complete. To completion, to fulfilment, to creation.

What are you forgetting to do today that makes you feel sparkly inside? Remember! Mairead.

Posted in Blogroll, Life Story | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Blinding Heat?

Posted on May 26, 2012 by

Hotel Patio

(View from hotel patio)

It’s been a busy day here in Swansea and the temperature is in the high twenties…. I’m too hot. I really don’t want to complain but unfortunately my thinking space is filled with the heat. You already know there’s very little room on the motorbike for clothes, right? Well, I seemed to have erred on the side of warm clothes. So I’m wearing jeans, heavy boots and a long-sleeved cardigan. It takes a balance of sun versus air-conditioned rooms to keep me functioning.

Wales Bridge

(Bridging England and Wales)

So I started the day with a nice breakfast in the air-conditioned dining room. Then walked for ten minutes into the centre of town and went into an air-conditioned coffee shop to have a nice bottle of cold water. Out in the sun again to meet Ciara at her college and then back inside for a nice air-conditioned lunch. After lunch walked back to the hotel and I’m now enjoying a nice orange juice in the air-conditioned lobby. Weirdly a few minutes ago I felt too cold in the air-conditioned lobby (I know what you’re thinking… ) so I went outside to the hotel patio. The sun was shining and the wind was blowing in from the sea. It was perfect and as soon as I got warmed up again I came back in.

Two Trees

(Two trees in Oxford Castle)

It seems to me this is exactly the same (in reverse) of the blinding cold a few days ago. At that time it took a balance of cold wind versus warm tea and real fires to keep me functioning. And that got me thinking about balance and functioning. Too little heat, too much heat, too little cold, too much cold, too little sleep, too much sleep, too little food too much food are all unbalanced and have an impact on functioning.

Finding balance, Mairead

Posted in Blogroll, Travel | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment

Early morning Bath, England…

Posted on May 24, 2012 by

Big Bird

(I often see huge birds as we drive along French roads and now British roads but I have never managed to get a picture – it took three drive-bys but I eventually got one picture of this bird of prey on a road in Buckinghamshire)

This has been a very busy trip with only small pockets of time to write. This pocket of time is very, very early. The rules would say it’s too early for a sane person on holiday to be awake. One could conclude I am either not awake, not on holidays or insane… or rules can be broken. We’re in Bath today. This will be our last stop before Swansea. We arrived yesterday about 6pm having instructed the sat nav. to stay off all toll roads, all motorways, all highways and to do so via Oxford. It duly obliged and although by the time we arrived in Bath we had been on the road for seven hours we had travelled through the most beautiful places.

Tea at Polly s

(Iced tea and green tea at Polly’s famous tea shop on Marlborough high street – notice I got two tea pots, one with tea and one with extra hot water – like like like)

Every English television program and every movie I have ever seen must have been set on these roads and I relived my childhood as we rode along. Black Beauty could have trotted up beside us at a crossroads and I would not have been surprised. The two guys from Brideshead Revisited may well have passed us on a straight stretch. I definitely heard the voice of the posh guy in Four Weddings and a Funeral when we stopped for tea on Marlborough high street – could it be the town in Birds of a Feather?

Bath Houses

(Bath is beautiful… we’ll be back)

The journey could not have been more different to the previous day when we instructed the sat nav. to take the shortest route, which turned out to be the A1 – a scary place full of big trucks and fast cars – but very efficient. On that day my knowledge of English geography grew exponentially. Not because we visited any of the places but because I was reading the road signs. We were on a mission to visit Bletchley Park where secret messages were decoded during World War II. There’s a museum of computing there also, because it turns out decoding led naturally to coding and so to computing.

Bath Church

(Didn’t realise it when I was taking the picture but between the wall in the foreground and the cathedral behind are the old Roman Baths, from which the city gets it’s name. Turns out the church owned the baths)

And all that gets me thinking about intention. I’m sitting on the bed in another lovely guest house at 5.30am because when we left Ireland last Thursday I intended to write every day of our trip. We found ourselves on the A1 because we intended to get to Bletchley Park in plenty of time to visit before it closed for the day. We travelled through my childhood television experiences because Denis loves to go round bends on the bike. We found ourselves in Bletchley Park because of all the old computers and strangely we also found ourselves together because of computers. We find ourselves in Bath because my friend, Nolene went there once two years ago on a pastry baking course and when she described Bath combined with pastry making, I was hooked and unconsciously setting my intention to be here.

Every place we find ourselves is because of an intention set, either consciously or unconsciously.

Where do you want to find yourself? Mairead.

Posted in Blogroll, Travel | Tagged , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Honeymoon in Edinburgh.

Posted on May 23, 2012 by

Scottish Flag

(The Scottish Flag)

We arrived in Edinburgh on Saturday afternoon. Twenty five years after we had planned to get there…. I wanted to go to Edinburgh for my honeymoon and Denis was happy to go too! But we never made it. At the time Denis was working on a cutting edge project. (Bear in mind it was 1985, cutting edge then looks boringly ordinary now.) It was also a secret project. Even from me. I had no idea what he did at work except he liked it. I soon found out.

1Edinburgh Castle

(Edinburgh Castle)

Unfortunately our honeymoon clashed with a very important work deadline. I was twenty four at the time and very set in my ways about the world, love came before deadlines and my honeymoon came before everything. Then his boss made me an offer I couldn’t refuse.

1Kilt

(They wear knee socks under their kilts)

I was invited to a meeting in his office, where I had to sign a non-disclosure agreement before the secret project was revealed to me. I think he thought if I knew how amazing the project was I would happily give up my honeymoon. I must have been ahead of my time because I thought it was boringly ordinary then. But the boss had daughters and he must have had an inkling that I would need a different kind of motivation. His offer: instead of Edinburgh he would pay for a honeymoon in New York and even throw in a trip to Disney World in Florida, but it would be a month after the wedding and Denis would be in New York for that month.

1Quote

(“Work as if you live in the early days of a better nation.” Alasdair Gray.)

That did it, we went to New York for our honeymoon. So a month after our wedding I was sitting beside the boss’s wife on my way to New York on my honeymoon. Sometimes we think we know exactly what we want and then something even better comes along. Maybe the thing you can’t have now will be yours in twenty-five years time or not at all, but something even more amazing can be yours right now….. the perfect exam results for the magical relationship, the perfect partner for a relationship with yourself, the perfect honeymoon for the thrills of Dumbo.

Take a look at what’s on offer to you right now, Mairead.

Posted in Blogroll, Travel | Tagged , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

The Blinding Cold.

Posted on May 21, 2012 by

Fort William

(Loch at Fort William)

The sun is shining as I write and the sky is blue and I am toasty… but yesterday I was freezing. Not literally…. well maybe not freezing but very very cold. The day started sunny and the Loch was very calm. We were all dressed up in the bike gear putting our next location in the sat nav when I realised we didn’t have a next location – I hadn’t booked our next location. We were off to Edinburgh, it was a weekend and I had only last night overheard a conversation about the difficulty of getting accommodation during a weekend in Scotland, oops. But of course it was all fine, we still had internet, booking.com is still great and the rating system still works so within two minutes we had a lovely bed for the night within budget.

Wet Stones

(Scottish Stones)

So off we set, into the mountains. As we sped along the blue of the sky began disappearing and the sun was just a memory… I was feeling a cold breeze. I checked the temperature constantly because it definitely felt like negative figures on my back but no, it was 11 degrees, a new high for this holiday, but it didn’t feel high inside my jacket. We were travelling through beautiful scenery, snow capped mountains and waterfalls and none of it was having a comforting effect on me. Eventually I turned off the intercom because I was getting bored of my complaining.

Exercise

(Scottish Exercise)

Which gave me time to consider what was going on…. I was feeling colder than the thermometer was registering. So I was thinking, that it doesn’t matter how amazing life is outside, you just can’t see it (or feel it) if it’s freezing cold inside your jacket (metaphorically speaking.) Which is a shame because of the icy interior we could miss the beauty of our lives and there’s beauty in every life. Isn’t there? Stay warm inside because it’s spectacular outside and you really don’t want to miss it.

Be nice to yourself, Mairead.

Posted in Blogroll, Travel | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

Power to the People

Posted on May 19, 2012 by

Tunnel

(No cameras allowed so this is a picture of the tunnel at Crauchan from their website)

We went to see a power station today. Called Crauchan the hollow mountain, it’s not really a hollow mountain, it’s a tunnel. The tunnel runs for a kilometre to a power station in the mountain which consists of four huge turbines that can create 100,000 kilowatts of electricity and it only takes two minutes, or 28 seconds if the turbines are already spinning. Who knew electricity could be so interesting but we had a very enthusiastic guide called Dorah and she inspired the following story.

Osprey Nest

(There’s lots of wild birds near the power station. You might be just able to make out the Osprey’s nest on the mobile phone mast. Dorah said they must be smart birds, they have the pick of the farmed trout – also in the picture – and free mobile calls home to Africa)

This is what happens… there’s a dam further up near the top of the mountain, full of water. There’s a lake, Lough Awe, at the bottom of the mountain. The power station gets a message from the electricity board, quick we need more power Xfactor took an early break and the whole of Britain just switched on their kettles! Then the man in the control room under the mountain flicks a switch and the water from the dam floods down into the mountain and through the turbines and out into Lough Awe. Within twenty eight seconds (the turbines are always spinning during Xfactor) there’s enough electricity to heat the kettles.

Reality

(This is reality here)

When the water from the dam is all used up the turbines then reverse and pump water from Lough Awe back into the dam ready for the next break. This very neat and self-supporting idea of being able to both create electricity with flowing water and refill the water to create again was the brainchild (or dream) of Sir Edward McColl. Although Sir Edward was a very intelligent, hard working and creative man he found it difficult to delegate and died in his prime a few years before the first reverse turbine power station at Crauchan was built.

Blackboard

(The feathered visitors)

So I was thinking…. it’s all very well to have a dream and work hard fulfilling it but…. if you ignore the signs for rest and balance then you just might wear out before your dream comes true! Put on the kettle, take a break and think of Sir Edward who may indeed be responsible for the power I’m using to type this.

Thank you Sir Edward McColl, Mairead.

Posted in Blogroll, Travel | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

We’re off…….

Posted on May 18, 2012 by

Ready

(Almost ready to go…)

We’re off to Wales via Scotland and we’ve arrived in Belfast and are sitting on the ferry. It’s been almost twelve months since our last motorbike trip and I had forgotten how much I love it! We left Greystones at 8.30am and it was overcast and a little chilly… but the smells were amazing. Fresh air, soil and grass – yummy.

Big Bridge

(Big Bridge near Dundalk)

An hour later I was very cold and I remembered what I love about cars – the heater. Maybe it’s time to get the heated vest thingy. You wear it inside your jacket and plug it into the bike. Your very own heater. For now all is well, hot tea is warming me up and we have a window seat. There’s also free wi-fi so all is very well.

Here we go

(Here we go)

It’s funny what we get used to. Since I was little I’ve thought that travelling by plane to go on holidays was part of the holiday. The excitement of getting there. The nice person that checked our tickets and took our luggage. The walk to the plane, the smiling air hostess and the cute little meals – that were free! It’s still exciting to go on holidays but the new things they’ve added to the plane journey are not helpful. The plastic bag of liquids. The bins full of half empty water bottles and nail clippers. An odd sense that you might actually be a security risk. The waiting. Boots off. Queueing. Boots on. Fitting your bag into a metal cage or maybe not fitting your bag into the metal cage. More waiting. The cute little free meals are gone now and so are the smiles.

Cosy

(Cosy and dry)

The ferry experience today was very different. Although it was raining there were lots of smiles. We were stopped once to look at our tickets, no you don’t need your passports. Then we drove to lane 14 and waited until a smiling man sent us up the ramp behind a bus, to keep you dry! Another smiling man directed us to the bike section. A third smiling man tied the bike to the boat. The whole thing took ten minutes. And two hours later we’re here.

Welcome to Scotland! Mairead.

Posted in Blogroll, Travel | Tagged , , , , , , | Leave a comment