Visiting

Having a visitor you have not seen for about 20 years can be very special. Especially when you discover in the first 2 minutes (with some relief) that you can reconnect with the old feeling of friendship and camaraderie as if you have only spoken last week!
Since the weather was good, too, it was decided to be a tourist in our own country and show our visitor a couple of our local "attractions". A walk in a narrow stretch of forest along a stream to the waterfall proved to be a very good choice. The "jungle" feeling was an unusual experience for our guest, and the water is always attractive for boys and adults alike.

A visit to a proper local tourist attraction was also extremely successful, and the sunny weather helped a lot:

Yes, this is Blarney Castle

We had not visited in a long time, and enjoyed it more than we had expected. Of course, several tour buses had just emptied, so the castle itself was quite crowded, but the grounds are large and lovely and much less busy. After the castle the boys enjoyed reading about plant dangers in the Poison Garden:

This beautiful Ricinus was one of many poisonous plants

patterns can be found anywhere...

And there were some wonderful trees:

Even though the weather has been very good this year, we found wonderful signs of Autumn being well on it's way:

Sun and red oak leaves - pure gold in my view!

And no, I did not bend backwards (literally! My back would never be the same again, I think) to kiss the stone, though I did see others do so. Missed my chance to become eloquent I suppose, though I am pretty pleased to have produced another post here for someone to enjoy...

Sandra