do you know what day it is?

So today (Feb 1) is the official first day of spring here in Ireland. That's right, Canada. Spring.
(If you ignore the fact that there was still frost this morning and my room is like an ice cube, it sounds inviting).

It's also St. Brigit's day -- A (neighbour, co-user of the office) stopped by this morning and read the story of Brigit. It was a lovely story, totally Irish mythology, with the Dana gods and the Tir-na-nog and Tir-na-moe (land of youth, apparently). It was about the founding of Ireland, Brigit casting down her mantle onto a world of writhing, swarming things that devour each other. Mm. So the mantle spreads, and then becomes mist, and when it clears the gods are standing on an island with a lot of hills and vales, which suddenly fill into rivers and lakes with an outpouring of water that is said to be the Earth laughing. (Mm :)). And yup, this island is Ireland, or the White Island, or the Island of Destiny.
Man. Ireland gets faeries and laughing earths and myths, and we get Confederation cause we rampaged over Turtle Island, back in the day. Urg.

Also, funny appropos of nothing tidbit: Waldo, of Where's Waldo fame, is called Wally here. Apparently Europe is on a more familiar, nickname basis with him.

Getting my fill of Irish culture these past few days: a traditional music concert in a church (with Martin Hays, who is a world-famous Irish trad music fiddler, apparently. The only fiddler I knew was Ashley MacIsaac...but hey. Different continents). It was lovely, but long (I felt 90: oh, these pews are hurting my keister -- oh, 10:00, it's getting late -- oh, this half is so much longer than the first. Mm, age). And Canada was mentioned a few times, one time to say that the pianist's favourite city is Halifax and here's a song that he composed specifically for it. Who knew.
And then tonight we had another ceilidh (spelling right this time, maybe. Cape Breton-right, at least), and it was awesome.

Oh, and I went horse-back riding the other day at E's (see a previous blog post). The whole kit and kaboodle -- brushed and tacked the horse, rode for an hour-ish, de-tacked and brushed down said horse and released her back into her paddock for lunch. I rode Pixie, who was very calm for most of it but spooked a bit near the end and would suddenly increase her speed nerve-wrackingly. Also, I thought I would remember more than I did -- curry comb use, check. How to mount, um... (I flailed. It wasn't pretty). And there was some boot-related drama, in which I couldn't find riding boots to fit me for some time because they wouldn't fit over my calves. I consoled myself with the thought that tap dancing (and dancing in general) muscles up your calves. Yeah, that's it. That's why the boots wouldn't fit.
Still, all in all it was lovely to be back on a horse...and it was a beautiful place to go riding (no white cows in mist, but a heron flew by and there was the ewe and lamb from the last trip).

Yup. I'm definitely chugging along quite nicely here (or, rather, moseying along). It's grand.

Until next time.

LOVE.