follow your dream

Fear and Hand Holding in Swansea…..

| Mairead

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(Butterfly enjoying the sun)

The last stop on our Round the United Kingdom, Short Motorbike Tour was Swansea. We went there to attend our daughter’s end of year exhibition. Twelve movies in one evening… don’t worry they were short, about five minutes each. Ciara wrote and directed her movie and she also had an acting role. She played a lesbian. The evening before one of her friends asked her if she was afraid that people would think she was gay. She said she had worried about that for the previous six months…. it was too late now. It was more important to get her message out there, afraid or not, other people’s judgements or not.

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(Butterfly enjoying some lavender)

When you want to follow your dream, and live your life with purpose, there are sometimes scary things you’ll need to do. And you’ll wonder if this is a good idea…. this sharing of your dream, your wishes, your message, your contribution to healing the world. What will people think? What will they say? How will they treat you? Will they be different? Will they ever speak to you again? Will they understand? Will their judgement resonate with your own judgement of yourself… and make it impossible for you to continue….. when they think you’re not good enough?

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(Mosaic butterfly in garden at Bloom)

I will include a link so you can watch Ciara’s movie, if you choose. If you do watch you may hear her message. You may understand her message. Or you may miss her message. You may think she is brave. You may think she’s foolhardy.  You may get stuck in wondering if she’s gay or not.  Whatever you get from the watching, one thing I have learned from my judgement of others is that my thoughts and words say more about me than they do about the one I judge. That’s what I got from watching movies on a warm Friday night in Swansea.

What are you saying about yourself? Mairead.

Love Letters, a movie by Ciara Hennessy.

Kilruddery Food Market has crafts?

| Mairead

Fiona

(Fiona from Treasurepalace)

Yesterday for our Saturday date we went to Killruddery Food Market. I think it just started this weekend, but I could be wrong. Anyway, this is the first we’ve heard of it and it will be running once a month. Killruddery House is just outside Bray, Co. Wicklow and the market is in the stables and that stables were in The Tudors (the television series, not necessarily the time in history… although I don’t know that for sure either.) There are vegetables and olives and crepes and Irish buffalo mozzarella cheese and lots more. I queued up for the crepes while Denis got the coffees. While we were sitting in one of the stables eating and drinking, I noticed a huge barn with more stalls.

Treasurepalace

(Old stuff made beautiful)

It was the secret craft barn (well not really a secret… and there were other things beside crafts…. but I like the idea of a secret craft barn so that’s what it is…) Inside we found vintage tin toys and jewellery and Fiona and Lynn. I took lots of pictures until I got to Fiona and then there was lots of talking instead. Fiona and her friend Sarah (Sarah was celebrating elsewhere with street parties and bunting… I think) started Treasurepalace Designs (http://www.treasurepalacedesigns.com) because they love making old stuff look beautiful. They sell the beautiful looking stuff. It’s another one of those “follow your dream” stories, you can read more about them on their website. Right next to Fiona was Lynn (http://www.celtoscroiprints.com) and she makes linocut prints. I love linocut printing, yum.

Lynn

(Lynn and some of her linocut printing)

Now the funny thing is that at noon the previous day I got a call from my friend Julie, she’d got last-minute free tickets to go to Bloom, the garden show at the Phoenix Park in Dublin. So off we headed in Friday afternoon bank holiday traffic. Julie is a bit of a storyteller so within just three stories we had arrived and were looking at the most beautiful display gardens.

Birds and Bees

(The Birds and The Bees garden at Bloom. Ben Landers, a young gardener, had a dream and this is what he made)

After the gardens and on our way to look at the rest of the site I noticed there was a craft area. Hat makers, basket makers, Fán Regan (www.theprintingrooms.com) a linocut printer, Karolina (http://www.karoArt.eu/) making wonderful ceramic art, Tunde Toth (www.tundetothpaperart.blogspot.com) and her helper making a huge flowers from raw silk, paper and some rain proof wax.

Tunde

(Tunde Toth

The funny thing? Well… recently I realised it was time to put my attention on my love of crafts and making craft things and within weeks I was meeting people who were already doing it, I was applying to go on an arts and crafts course and I was surrounded by reminders that setting your intention allows paths to what you want to pop up where you least expect them. Crafts at a garden show? Impossible! Crafters at a food market? Crazy….. or is it?

Vintage Toys

(The vintage tin toys www.simplytoysireland.com)

So I’ll be writing and crafting from now on, how great is that? Might have taken a few years to get here but it feels so good it could even be worth the wait. Wait if you want or start now, it’s up to you.

Linocut

(Fán’s lino and cutting tools, sigh)

What do you want? Mairead.

Canada Dreaming

| Mairead

(The brasserie two doors down sells Murphy’s!)

We got up this morning in silence – the hotel’s closed and it’s our last day.  Our boat doesn’t leave until 9pm so we decided to visit some more of the D-Day museums, as Arromanches was so inspirational. We headed for Pegasus Bridge. It featured in a movie called The Longest Day. It was a very interesting tour, mainly because the guide was so enthusiastic.

(Enthusiastic guide)

Encouraged by this visit and with more time to spare we thought we’d try the Juno Beach Museum, the lady in the tourist office recommended it. Juno beach was where the Canadian troops landed. With my four Canadian readers and a sister, brother-in-law and niece about to become Canadians maybe it was time to check Canada out….

(Big hoarding on the way to museum)

I am delighted I did.

(Canadian flag blowing in the breeze)

It’s another “follow your heart” museum!

Truly!  Firstly we arrive and are asking for our tickets in French from the nice young man. He asks something we can’t understand so he reverts to amazingly good English with a Canadian accent. He must have learned English from a Canadian? Yes, his mother, he’s from Canada! They have a program to bring students to France for four to eight months of the year to work at the museum. It’s related to the “follow your heart” bit….

(There’s a Church Hill (well, Churchill) in Canada!)

The follow your heart bit….. each anniversary after 1944 Canadian veterans would return to France and see the places where they fought and where their friends and family members had died. At some point a group of them started to dream.

(The Canadian Juno Beach Museum – in the shape of a Maple Leaf – recognisable from the air)

They wanted to have a place that would tell the story of the Canadians who had fought and died so far from home. And they wanted it for the children and the children’s children, down through the generations. That is why they bring young people from Canada to work at the museum. The student who guided our tour said she was the same age as the Canadian (and British and American and Dutch and Norwegian and other) boys who came up the beach in a landing craft on D-Day (the same age as the German boys who tried to stop them.). So at the end of the tour we all clapped and she was just leaving when I asked her if she knew any more about the story of the veterans who had the idea to build the museum.

(A look-out bunker, now covered in sand to the roof, beside the museum)

She said she didn’t but she turned to a man who was on the tour and asked him if he would answer that. I had though he was a tourist. But no… His Dad was one of the veterans who had had the dream! Well, you could have knocked me down with a maple leaf. (The design of the building is based on the five points of a maple leaf.) He went on to tell us that he was involved in the group that made it happen. They had to find the money and it was going very slowly until Walmart gave them a huge donation. They had a site at another location and that fell through. But they were determined and went down the beach to the Marie (Mayor) of the small town of Courielle sur Mer. In 2000 they started building at the site (it used to be a municipal campsite) he gave them.

I am mortified to say I didn’t ask his name, but I did ask for a picture…….

(The dream-maker, the guide and me!)

(Do I look happy?)

And if that wasn’t enough……..

(Canadian and French flags)

At the beginning of the tour, the guide (more mortification, can’t remember her name, picture above) started to ask people where they were from and how come they were here. Very nice little touch, very natural and maybe she doesn’t do it all the time, but I’m glad she did, because something really nice happened. So she was going around the group and we said we were on our way home and just came to have a look. All the others were from different parts of Canada that I didn’t recognise. Then this tall man with his son and grand-son (about 12 years old) said “I’m from Barrie, Toronto”. And of course I pipe up “My sister is moving to Barrie in July!”. Everyone had a little moment… wow…. and then the tour started.

(Poster in the museum….love the bit “Canada is neither France nor Great Britain; and it’s not the U.S.A. either…”)

But just as we were moving on to a new bit, this lovely man gave me his number to give to my sister, because he remembers what it was like when he first moved to Canada. He was seventeen and he went to visit his aunt and stayed, fifty years ago. So Moira, remind me to give you his number, it’s in my camera case, I’ve already organised to go see him (and his son and grandson) when I visit you!

Consider Canada checked out and scoring very high marks. Go Canada!

(It would take thirteen and a half hours standing under the scrolling names to see them all. And it’s not going slowly.)

As I write this I am on the boat and the captain has said there’s trouble ahead…. stormy weather…. (it all sounds like songs) but when you read this I’ll be back home cutting the grass or getting groceries.

Hello Ireland, au revoir France, Mairead.