Tuesday, November 18, 2014

Just a nice day...

The part of the team who was here for only one week left today. We had our good-byes last night. They were up and off to Dublin at about 7 am. Those remaining had breakfast at 8:30...except for me. I had set my alarm for 7:30 and 8:00 and totally ignored it; I finally got up at 9. I had some tea and toast and then went looking for a task. We were to clean the castle today. Others were cleaning bathrooms and vacuuming and/or mopping floors and checking under beds and gathering up laundry. I was given the job of ironing the table cloths for the Saturday night meal. There were 8 or 10 but the work went quickly with the roller ironing table.

As I was running the vacuum in the apartment, Tonda came in. She said she would finish so I could go to Silver Service at Castlewellan Presbyterian Church. (I do have an apartment BUT the decorations for both the men and women's banquet are stacked in here plus the "hair station" here--there is a curling iron and blow dryer with UK plugs that fit the UK outlets! Everyone uses the sitting room and it's a nice little "break" room.)

I changed and joined Andrew and five others for the 3 minute drive. We were encouraged to sit at different tables. I joined five lovely ladies. We chatted about lots of things. One woman is an elder at the Presbyterian Church....she is 91 and was a missionary in Egypt during the Suez issues! Another is a recent widow; another from Lisburn with a son in the US. He came for college, found a bride and stayed.

The program for the day was Marlene's friends from a former church (Marlene is the pastor's wife who I met three years ago. I visited with her again in 2012 and 2013). The musician was incredible...a beautiful voice. She accompanied herself on guitar. The speaker was short with a reading about prayer.

The thirteen had arrived in Dublin and took the same tour of the city that we did last Tuesday. We returned from Silver Service and found that several had walked to Castlewellan town for some shopping. Andrew offered to drive us in and we accepted! We shopped for a couple of hours and Andrew came back to get us. The others had walked back. It's not THAT far but some of us have knee/back issues.

Supper was simple: loaded potatoes and a mixed fruit crumble with ice cream. After supper there were two choices. A man who had been a teen during the Troubles and a police officer later was coming to share about his experiences. The second choice was to go with Andrew to church. The churches of Castlewellan are having "open houses". There are several participating. They have a short meeting and show people around. So far they have visited St. Malachy's Catholic and the Church of Ireland. Tonight was Presbyterian night.

I opted for the talk at the castle but was so sleepy. I know he had a great presentation. There were several questions after. He is optimistic about peace and reuniting Ireland in the next generation.

After the presentation several were in and out of the apartment for conversation. We laughed and carried on for probably too long!! Again we had a full day for those who traveled either to or from Ireland!

The weather today was nice. It was 46, windy but no rain. I saw that sunrise was at 8 am and sunset at 4:18 pm. That was part of the "hurry, hurry" yesterday. There isn't much daylight.

There are no photographs today. "My" photographer was busy with preparation for CGB #2. She is an Assistant Lay Director.

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