And the winners are…

(Random unrelated photo to brighten the post up.) 

Hello strangers! How’re you all doing? Once more I’ve set a new record for blog neglect, but at least I gave advanced warning about it this time. Anyway, I’m back now and I’ve plenty of posts (and possibly another giveaway) lined up for the month ahead. Which, it turns out, is October! I love October.

First things first though, time to announce the winners of my giveaway. Thank you so much to everyone who entered, and for all your kind words and wishes too. All went well with the op, I’m glad to report. But enough about that! Winners…

So I assigned everyone some numbers depending on the amount of entries they had in and then submitted that to that random number generator thingy. I have to say, everybody had at least two or three in there - there were 36 different people in with 106 entries. Not bad going, eh? The first number who came out won the first photo, the second number the second photo and third etc etc.  Ok, so here’s how it all ‘went down’, as they say:

*drumroll*

And the first winner is…number 62 - Pabkins!


Next up we have number 82 - that’s Kristin!


And the third and final number out is 77 - the lovely Mademoiselle G!

Congratulations ladies, I’ll be contacting you soon to get your postal info. I actually feel really quite guilty now that I only had three prints to give away. I wanted everyone to win! As I mentioned earlier though, I may be holding another giveaway in the very near future. And this time it’ll be something from someone who knows what they’re doing, namely my very talented little sister and her boyfriend.  So check back soon for more details! Hopefully I’ll manage a post or two in the next week as well, I’ve no excuses this month.

Anyhow, thanks again to everyone who entered and I hope everyone’s doing well. Must get a good catch up with you nice blogging folk very soon!

Moons, trees, stars and a giveaway.

Oh look, what a surprise. Last time I checked in I said I’d be back in a couple of days and here I am over a week later wracked with guilt as usual. Ok, maybe ‘wracked’ is a little strong, but I do sort of feel as if I’ve been cheating on you guys with those floosies over on Tumblr and Twitter. Serial blog adulteress, that’s me.

So here I am with the proverbial bunch of flowers, hoping to earn some small iota of atonement for these weeks of neglect and excuses...  There I go with the drama again, but you get idea. Anyway, it's time for the previously promised giveaway!

Especially for my Blogger friends, I have one A4-size print* of the picture above and each of the two below to give away. All you have to do is leave a comment on this post to be in with a chance of winning.

That’s three prizes, so three winners. Unless by some freak of chance someone gets picked out thrice. That’d be a bit heebie-jeebiesish.  Unlikely as it may be, it could happen, though, for I’m going to stick with what appears to be blogger tradition and allow extra entries. Just do any of the following:

- share a link to this giveaway on your own blog;
- follow this blog;
- follow me on Tumblr;
- follow me on Twitter;
- or add me as a contact on Flickr (alternatively, to be fair to those who don’t use Flickr, you can just tell me which of my photos over there is your favourite).

Shameless self-promotion, I know. But sure you can’t blame a girl for trying ;) Anyhow, in your comment let me know if you’ve done any of the above and for each one you’ll get an extra magic ticket in the random-number-generator hat.  And don't worry, all you lovely folk already following here will automatically get an extra entry. I realise a lot of you are already following me elsewhere on the web too, but I’m a bit scatter-brained about these things so don’t forget to remind me!

Now for the timeline. Since I’ve giving up fooling myself and accepted that I just don’t have as much time to blog these days as I used to, I’m going to leave this giveaway open for a little while. I’m due in for surgery in a couple of weeks too and, while I’m expecting it to go well and be back on my feet pretty sharpish, I don’t want to make promises I can’t keep. How does a month sound?

Ok, so I’ll leave it open until the end of September and on Saturday October 1st I’ll announce the winners. Thanks folks and best of luck to you all - though I know that’s a wee bit impossible. Believe me, if I had lots of money I’d send you all something :)

*The photos seen here may be slightly cropped in the printed version.

The Fairy Folk of Donegal, Part II

 

Finally! I’ve managed to find some time to post these. It’s been a mad sort of a week, albeit a very, very fun one. I would explain, but that’d take too long and I’d probably end up putting these off for yet another ‘day’. (If you haven’t figured it out already, ‘day’ actually means ‘week’ in Donegal dictionaries.) Anyway, so here they are. The fairy stories I promised for my friend Laura about two Donegal days ago. 

They were gathered as part of 1938 The Schools Manuscripts project, when every teacher in Ireland was issued with a booklet in which to record local history and folklore given to them by their pupils. These particular entries were collected from the area surrounding the village of Clonmany, where Laura is from and where the images in this and the last post were taken. You can read more from the Manuscripts here, and you can see more of my photos here. Enjoy! 

 

Excerpt I

One day a woman went out for a can of water. She had a little baby lying in the cradle asleep. When she came in her child was away and another child in its place. Every day when the woman would go out the child would play, play a fiddle. When she would come in the child would be asleep. The woman went to the priest. The priest told her it was a fairy and when she would go home to hold it over the smoke. The woman went home and held it over the smoke. The baby let three cheers and went up the chimney.

Mary McCarron, Cloontagh 21/7/38

 

 

Excerpt II

 

When the fairies had a certain amount of mystical control in lonely or mountainous districts, some of my own ancestors, tried to win their favours by sharing their hospitality with them on certain occasions, e.g. on the occasion of a wedding feast or of a christening feast, a good share of the "Spirit" was left in a vessel outside the house so that the "Wee Folk" could make merry and put "Good Luck" on the subjects of the feast. There is no need to say that the vessel was always empty in the morning, and to explain further would only rob this little story of its flavour.

Winnie Diver, Tiernasligo*

*I’m not sure if this one is from the 1938 manuscripts or not.   

Excerpt III

There is a rock above Cleagh which is called Carna. One day a girl was playing on it and a fairy came out and followed her. A man called Ned was nearby and the fairy said to him, 'catch her for me'. One day a girl was playing on a rock above Straid and she heard beautiful singing. She ran till she was at home. It is said that there is a 'cave' in a field of Mr Bradleys at Cleagh and that the fairies come out every night and sing there. If you go down into this cave you will not get out until you reach Crossconnell as there is an underground passage from it to Crossconnell.

James Bradley, Cleagh, Clonmany 12/5/38

 

Oh, and while were on the subject of fairies, I would like to invite you all to a fae-tastic little shindig taking place the weekend after next. On Friday 24th June, that’s the day before the annual Mad Tea Party,  the lovely Jorgelina is hosting a ‘Day of the Fairies’ fairy gathering. It sounds wonderful, so run along over to her blog to check out the details.

A Fairy Tree for Bealtaine

“All around the thorn tree, the little people play; and every one that pass there, they turn their heads away.”

- Count John McCormack, ‘The Bush Beyond Clougheen’.

Hello folks! Just dropping in quickly this evening to let you all know I haven’t given up blogging or anything, I’m actually still struggling to escape that time warp I mentioned last week. You know I seriously believe The End must be fast approaching, what with time speeding up and the fact that I don’t remember the last time the sun wasn’t shining! The rest of the world’s getting blown away and washed out of it, yet there hasn’t been a drop of rain here in around a month. Something’s definitely up. 

Anyway, I’m sure now that’s it’s officially summer the grey clouds will be back with a vengeance soon enough, and once I’m stuck indoors again time will return to it’s normal blog-friendly pace. I know nearly every other person in Ireland would probably hit me for saying this, but I can’t bloody wait. Bring back the gloom, all this pleasantness just isn’t normal!

(Oh, and sorry about my half-assed attempt at a Bealtaine post. My photo of the hawthorn is out of season and everything - it has to be in bloom to be Beltane-y. I did have some lovely shots of a flowering thorn from a couple of days ago but I deleted them from my camera by accident last night. Typical!)

Woolly Fabulous

A Woolly Fabulous creation.

So I considered attempting some sort of April Fool’s trick this evening but it turns out my mind’s just not devious enough. I’ve always been a bit useless at lying and it looks like my lack of skill in that area transfers to the online realm too. No matter though, for I’ve something much better to share instead.

It’s a link to a wee corner of crafty heaven. And I mean ‘crafty’ in the woolly, felted, knitted, crocheted sense - nothing  at all to do with slyness or deception. I kid you not,  you’ll be as bowled over as I was by the quirky handmade creations of Canadian crafter Woolly Fabulous.

Almost entirely self taught, Ms Fabulous (aka Odile Gova) uses only thrifted materials in her work. Just look at how she transformed her garden trees using only second hand doilies and an old tablecloth: 

Or these adorable little mushrooms, made from homemade felt, old bottle corks and recycled zippers. Too cute for words!

And then there’s her stunning felted brooches, available to buy at her Etsy shop:

 

 

Just so you know, the pieces I’ve shared here are only an teensy weensy sample of her extensive body of work and the only way to fully appreciate her imaginative talent is to pay her a visit yourself. In fact, this girl has so much loveliness to oogle make sure to leave yourself plenty of time to take it all in. With hundreds upon hundreds of pieces on display, she’s a bit of a crafting machine! One for the bookmarks folder for sure.

 

p.s Thanks so much for all your wonderful comments on my last post. I’m a bit pressed for time this evening (as usual, eh?) but I hope to get caught up with them super soon!

Barking Mad

The stuff of memories?

So it’s the start of National Tree Week everybody! Great, right? Well please forgive this particular leaf lover for not getting too over excited.  Sure I’m all for celebrating our wooded wonders and I give a big virtual pat on the back to those lovely folk over at the Tree Council of Ireland, they do good work. But I’m afraid I’m going to have to kick off their well intentioned week with a rant. 

You see I’m finding it very hard at the minute to muster up any national pride in the way our country cares for trees, especially since it’s recently been revealed that we’re planning on selling them all off! Well, maybe not all of them exactly, just our remaining forests.  Over a million acres to be precise. Kind of ironic when you consider the theme for this year’s week is ‘Celebrating Forests for People’.

Regular readers to this blog will have heard me lamenting our embattled trees before. Irish trees were arguably the biggest losers of the Celtic Tiger era and its head long rush towards development and ‘progress’, and I had hoped the recession might have provided them with some respite from the builders’ bulldozers. Unfortunately that appears to have been a rather naive notion.

Yup, Ireland’s forests are now up for sale along with everything else in the country, reduced to nothing more than a commodity to be monopolised by private investors.

In fairness, the plan isn’t necessarily to chop all the forests down. Well it is actually, but not in the way you might think. Apparently interest has been expressed in the prized lots by a Swiss finance company called Helvetia Wealth, who own the International Forestry Fund. Interestingly, the IFF is now chaired by former Taoiseach Bertie Ahern (those of you after a cynical chuckle should read the laudations for him on their website).  

 

Speaking of their website, after reading it one could be forgiven for being a tad optimistic about the future of our forests; lots of talk of sustainability and ethical and environmental consideration, pictures of bluebell carpeted woods, details of how entire local economies can flourish around the forests themselves… It all sounds quite reasonable, doesn’t it?

You’ll have to pardon my scepticism, but I find it hard to be convinced that a multinational corporation driven solely by profit garnered from timbering has the best interests of our country’s natural heritage at heart.  My suspicion was further heightened by the ‘terms and conditions’ you have to agree to before even logging into their site, basically a disclaimer which warns that not everything on the website should be taken as set-in-stone fact. I think that one was aimed at the investors, but it still takes the shine out the silver lining I highlighted above.

You know it’s issues like this that have me itching all the more to get my journalism boots back on. So far the Irish media have paid little attention to the plight of our forests, but I suppose why would they if it wasn’t sent out pre-explained in a press release? Investigative reporting was already on its last legs but I think the recession has finally killed it off. Newsrooms are just so short staffed theses days that editors can’t afford to give their reporters the time needed to look into these things properly. Ah, but I digress…

 

Back to the trees! So I realise a lot of you fellow inhabitants of this soon-to-be-not-so-emerald isle will already be up to speed on all this thanks to the petition doing the rounds on Facebook. Those of you from further a field that are interested can find out more here at The Woodland League, where you’ll find a copy of the petition to our president. Feel free to sign it! The more countries that say no to this carry on, the harder it’ll be for leaders to get away with it elsewhere. And doubt for a second that similar shenanigans aren’t afoot in your own respective backyards!

The British public have already shown that it’s possible to get governments to change their minds on these matters, now it’s Irelands turn to take back the trees. We’re only a little country, and from what I can see our leaders rarely listen to anything we say, so we could do with all help we can get. I thought maybe I might be able to rally some international support from all you lovely blogger folk? Especially you American ones, our government has always done everything you Yanks have told it to ;) So sign up, pass it on, and help us save our forests! The Irish nation thanks you in advance.

Some Scandinavian Daydreams (…and an awkward aside.)

© }~T~{

I went to Norway last week. I got there on a little fishing boat I borrowed from the pier one morning. I sailed up out of our lough, rounded the Scottish isles, and by the evening I was watching the sun set behind me from the edge of a fjord.   

That night I slept with the stars as my blanket and the moon my pillow.

The next day I went into the forest. There I met an elven lady who, with her sweet dog Mira, took me on a tour of its moss and mists. We ate apples and mushrooms and got pine needles stuck in our shoes…

 Ok, so sadly I didn’t really steal a boat and take off to Norway last week and most of the above story isn’t actually true. The part of about the elf and her dog is, though, and I certainly feel like I’ve been off exploring the wild woods of the north. I just didn’t have to leave the house to do it.

Nope, all I did was log into Flickr and happen to stumble upon the most beautiful fairytale of a photostream I’ve yet had the pleasure of viewing. At first I was speechless (which anyone who knows me will tell you is a rare occasion indeed) and I’m still finding it hard to put into words exactly what it is I love so much about these verdant glimpses of Nordic idyll brought to us by a girl named }~T~{. Which may partially explain the silly little whimsy above.

Anyway, here are a few more of her photographs, just a brief selection of the many, many fantastic images she has in her Flickr stream. (Well worth a wander!) The lovely lady also has a great blog if you fancy calling round for some forest tea.

Oh, and one other sort-of-related thing I just want to add (something of a wee mini-rant I’m sneaking in at the bottom here). I mentioned several of posts back that I have one main problem with Tumblr and how some people don’t use it fairly. I’m not prepared to comment on the reasons why I think they do it, but one thing I’ve seen happening a lot is bloggers posting others' photos without any links or acknowledgements. Besides the obvious copyright infringement and what not, it’s really frustrating on a less illegal level.

Take T’s beautiful work, for example. When I did finally discover her stream I realised that I had been a fan of her work for some time and hadn’t even known. You see, when a photo is properly uploaded from it’s source onto Tumblr you should be able to click right through it back to its owner’s page. Unfortunately a lot of the time the only place your click gets you is back to the person’s blog who uploaded it. And that’s what happened here; I remember coming across one of her photos months ago but when I tried to find out more about who it came from I simply couldn’t. Very annoying! 

Anyhow, I don’t know why I moaning to you guys since most of you aren’t on Tumblr. Rest assured I’ve already ranted plenty over there too, it even lost me a few followers. They can be a more fickle bunch at times, them Tumblrs! Though most are very lovely :)

And His Dog is Just Like Charlie!

© Tommy Ga-Ken Wan
 

There’s no point to this post today. Not really anyway. Only that I came across this picture on Flickr the other day and I think I’ve fallen in love with it. Is it, in fact, my favourite photograph of all time? Possibly. Look at it! It’s just so wonderful in everyway.  Not that it’s necessary to enjoy the image, but if you're interested the man is one David Wasley, described as the photographer as “an artist, a shepherd and maker of coloured windows”. I don’t know the name of the dog.  Mr Wasley is a fellow of The British Society of Master Glass Painters and this was taken on the day of his son’s wedding. What a guy, what a photograph!

Gimpy Days

Check out my new Flickr page! 

I’m a terrible one for going through phases, particularly when it comes to pastimes. Case in point being my Etsy treasury obsession a little while ago. I’ve actually not been on there for ages now, but no doubt when the notion takes me I’ll throw myself right back into it. That’s the way I do things, when I come across something I enjoy I tend to overload on it for a while at first. Like playing online Scrabble, or reading too much of the one author.

My current obsession is with the image editing software Gimp. I couldn’t afford to buy Photoshop again when my laptop packed in so I got this free alternative instead; it really is almost as good. At least it is for my purposes, I’m sure proper graphics people would wrinkle their noses at it. Anyway, aside from making my blog banner and buttons, I hadn’t put it to much use until recently. Then about a week ago I was saving some photos when I realised how many I had taken since I got my wee camera. I’ve hundreds! Most of them are quite poor but I have that many I thought I should do something with them. So I started playing around on Gimp and I’ve now found a new outlet for my procrastination. Many hours will and already have been consumed!

Here’s a few examples of what I’ve come up with while playing around with layers and textures. These are only my first attempts at this kind of thing and I’m still only learning, so please don’t judge them too harshly! I’ll have creepy ones to post as the season approaches. And I haven’t forgotten about the promised fungi photos, either, I’ll post them some day soon too. You’re going to be sick looking at photos here by the time this phase passes!

p.s I’ve even started a Flickr account, which you can check out here.

Hello Bluggies, I’m back!

A week is a long time in politics, so they say, but I’m telling you now- it’s so much longer in Blogland. I can’t believe I haven’t posted since last Thursday! Usually, if I don’t pop in at least every day or two I get withdrawal symptoms and feel the need to apologise profusely for my absence. What I’m supposed to say today? Will “sorry I’ve been so crap” cut it?  Well, sorry I’ve been so incredibly crap!

I do have numerous and quite valid reasons for abandoning you guys recently, but they’d take another week to get into. Most of them are positive, by the way. Aside from sniffles, sneezes and some amusing football scores, all is super fantastic in the Danu household. It really has been a fine and dandy blogging break. I’ve missed you guys though; I’ve missed sharing my musings and catching up on yours. I’ve got a such a backlog of bluggies (my new term for blog buddies) to call in on I’m going to have to clear an entire day in my diary. It’ll no doubt be a good day, I’m looking forward to it!

Anyway, this really is a just a quick hello to prove I’m still alive. I’ve plenty of fae finds and almost-seasonal spookiness I’m dying to share, including links to some excellent blog parties, but it’s very late and my bed is calling.  Normal service will resume shortly, I promise. Till the morrow dear friends!

p.s I realise the picture has nothing to do with this post. It was just the first one I came across in my file. I’ve been playing around with textures recently; I’m not very good at it but I’ll post some more another day…

Elm Wood Wonders

Just came across these colourful creations by Tracy Melton on Etsy. I looked the guy up and it seems his work has been featured quite extensively elsewhere, so you may have come across these before. I, however, am just seeing them for the first time and I love them. So vibrant and striking yet emanating the calming power of nature.

Free Spirit Spheres

 

Welcome to the future, my friends, a utopian society where we all live in these eco-friendly spherical pods suspended from ancient trees. Well, it would be nice. Designed and built by Canadian boat maker  Tom Chudleigh, these ‘free spirit spheres’ are tree houses for adults- literally, there’s an age restriction of 16 and up for liability purposes.  Ha! Take that you pesky kids!

Anyway, if you fancy spending your days swaying in the branches of a wise old oak or pine (lets face it, who wouldn’t?) you can actually purchase a sphere and it’s components to construct your own forest dwelling.  If you’re like me, however, and don’t have a cool $150k to spare or the ability to hammer a nail into a plank of wood without chopping your thumb off, worry not. Tom rents out a few of his spheres in a wood on Vancouver Island for overnight stays. Hmm, let me think- a night in a hostel bunk bed, or one rocked to sleep by the gentle wind?  Tough choice. That little corner of the world is on my must visit list so I really hope to be looking them up at some point in the future. 

 

A Bedroom For Dreamers

I was just having a wee cup of tea there before hitting the hay when I came across this. I thought I better share it now ’cause I’ve a terrible habit of finding then forgetting to post stuff. Isn’t it simply stunning? Can you imagine how beautiful it must look by night? It was painted by artist Lola Duffy for a 12-year-old’s bedroom in an apparently magical, fantasy-filled home. Lucky little lassy. You can read more about the house here. Well anyway folks, it’s about time I scampered off to my own bed- where I’ll be dreaming it was this one! (Or this one. I'm not sure which I love the most.)

More Journal Pages

 I’m actually really busy today and shouldn’t be on here right now but as soon as I realised this was the last day in July I had to make sure I got this post up. I couldn’t let the month pass by having posted just one journal page! So here’s another couple. I finished them a while back but never got round to sharing and I’ve a few more to finish off, but they’ll have to wait till another day. (Journaling in August may not be as alliterative but I'm sure it'll be just as fun!) Again these are quite child-like and not really very good at all, but I’m sure you’ll excuse me as I’m only a beginner. The photos make them look even messier and I’m sure if I’d time I could get better shots, but I don’t so these will do. Anyway, here’s the first:

The quote in this one says: “The world is full of magic things, patiently waiting for our senses to grow sharper.” Said Yeats, who himself claimed to have met and conversed with a fairy on a West coast beach one stormy eve. I can’t remember the exact details of the tale but I know said fairy was supposedly a beautiful, life-sized woman and not a little fluttery Tinkerbell-type. How he knew she was actually a fairy I also fail to remember. I’m really going to have to look that story up again… Anyway, you know what Yeats was like. He was all into that carry on in his old age.

I think I over did it again in that last one so I tried to keep it simple here. I actually quite like this one, but it doesn’t look that good on camera. After I painted the leaves green I gave them a coat of silver paint so they shine, plus they're not stuck down to the actual page, but you can't really see that here. Oh well.