Let the Partying Begin!

Right, so at this very moment, as I type, a large proportion of the people I know are on their way to rock it out at an honest-to-god actual real life festival. The rest are either off sunning it up somewhere, or at least making plans that involve going outside at some point over the weekend. What am I doing? Preparing for my busiest blogging weekend since last Halloween’s madness. And do you know what, I wouldn’t have it any other way.

When they’re all waking up in their stuffy wee tents, on a soggy Donegal beach, with the mother of all hangovers, I’ll be sitting right here sipping tea, fresh as a daisy in my dressing gown and slippers, lapping up all the fairytale delights set to grace the land of blog over the coming days. Before that, however, there are a couple of matters to attend to. The first being my party post for today’s fae gathering!

I had prepared a totally different post for this, to be honest. I’d it all ready to go last night and everything when I had a change of heart literally at the eleventh hour - or to be more precise the twenty third… Anyway, it was late yesterday evening when I decided to abandon my post on fairy fools and other unseelie types for something a bit more light hearted.  This is a party after all, lets leave the darker side of fae till another day.

The result of this, though, is that I haven’t had much time to prepare any sort of a coherent post. Instead I’ve just put together a collection of some of my fairy-esque photos and things which (to the best of my recollection) I haven’t shared here before. Hope you like them!

Finally, all of the above I either dug up from old folders or had already uploaded to Flickr but I sat up late last night making these digital collages especially for the party :) Sorry, the little quotes on them are fairly corny but it was very late and, as I pointed out in my last post, my brain goes into shut down mode when I’m tired.

p.s. I have to go out now but I'll catch up with all the party posts as soon as I get home. Hope you're all enjoying the festivities!

p.p.s. I'm home now and I was just about to set out on my party adventure when I remembered I forgot to post this! You've probably seen it before but I only came across it the other day. Proof, my friends, proof.

Midsummer Dawn

You’ll have to forgive me this evening if I’m not too chatty.  When I’m tired my brain tends to turn to mush and basic things like constructing a sentence can be a challenge. So I’ll be keeping the words to a minimum tonight since I’m just the tiniest bit exhausted from traipsing about the countryside at all hours of this morning.

A few of us from my local camera club set out at ridiculous o’clock so we could catch the dawn of the solstice sun. And not just from any old place, from the home of the sungods themselves, An Grianan of Aileach. During daytime hours you can drive right up the fort, but at 4.30am the road was closed and we had to climb (ok, walk) a large part of the 800ft hill while still rubbing the sleep from our eyes. (It’s at this point I want to add that, cliches bedamned, I’m just not as young as I used to be!)

It was well worth it, though, and we were even lucky with the weather for once. It was raining all yesterday evening, and then all afternoon today, but at dawn this morning the clouds parted just long enough for the sun to peak its proud head over the hills so we could get our snaps. After that it was all tea and biscuits and picnic blankets- at five o’clock in the am, on the solstice, at a millennia old site of sun worship. I could think of worse ways to pass a few hours.

Well folks, I hope you’re all having a lovely Midsummer and now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m off to conk out somewhere…

p.s. Is anyone else having trouble viewing their dashboard? I swear, Blogger’s really beginning  to try my patience!

Helping

Hi folks! Hope you’re all having a lovely Sunday. I’m just calling in briefly this evening to share a link which I implore you click. Maybe it’s the raw human sadness of this woman’s story and the fact that it touches on one of my most innate fears,  or maybe (and most probably) it’s because the concept to help her is just so friggin’ beautiful,  but since reading this post this morning I haven’t been able to get it out of my head:

Bottle Bell Photography: Helping One Person Heals the World

It really is a beautiful idea, isn’t it? I don’t have much I can contribute myself, I’m just going to send a couple of my Flickr snaps I think, but I know what a talented and kind hearted bunch you lot are.  So please, take the time to read the post. I promise you’ll be as moved as I was.