Another bout of tweaking, this time some reorganising of the Resources section.
The links section has been a bit of a mess for a while now, so I've done some tidying up and reformatting there; any dead links should be gone now, and I've added in some more bits and pieces, but also removed some to keep the focus more tightly on Gaelic Reconstructionist Polytheism. I've decided to stick to what I know, as it were, to avoid confusion.
In the process of all that I decided to split off the pdf and .doc files into a new page:
Article Downloads
And then I decided to reorganise the Big Book List. That involved splitting off the older books into a list on its own:
Antiquarian Books
This is mainly because these are often the kinds of books that are problemmatic in one way or another, and it's unwieldy to have them lumped all together with the more reliable ones. They can still be useful but I think it's better to get a solid footing in the more modern works first.
Anyway, that's it for now...
Thursday, 1 September 2011
Monday, 29 August 2011
Some changes and tweaking
With the kids back at school and some time to myself again, I've started concentrating on writing and research in my spare time again. I spent most of the summer trying to come up with some ideas of what to do next but nothing's really inspired me yet. Instead, I kept coming back to the idea of cleaning up what's already there; some of the older stuff on the website is in need of tidying up and redoing, especially in light of the progress I've made elsewhere, and I decided that some reorganisation was in order, too.
Since I started on this incarnation of the website in 2008 I've added quite a lot of articles and it's getting really unwieldy. There's not really much I can do about that right now, but after the latest slew of articles focusing on the gods, spirits and ancestors, I've kept thinking they need to organised a little better so I've finally split them off from the Cosmology section where I originally stuck them, and put them in their own section titled 'Gods'. I've also moved my old dissertation on the Dagda, and the article on the Cailleach into that section, seeing as they come under that heading too.
The biggest changes are in the Introduction section, though. As time goes by my thoughts on certain things are solidifying, I suppose, and lurking around various parts of the internet as I do I've seen some questions come up repeatedly. I've also seen some comments on what I've already written (and have been 'accused' of being American on one site, which amused me greatly. I'm not sure which amuses me more, though - whether it's because it seemed like that would be a bad thing, or because they decided I 'sound' American...) and some good points were made, so I decided to expand on the 'Celtic' Reconstructionism? article to address those. Some of it's just trying to clarify or explain things a bit better. Some of it I've added in to try and address the questions I see popping up a lot - like the differences between CR and Druidry.
The Scottish Reconstructionism article that followed on from 'Celtic Reconstructionism' has now been renamed and reworked a little too. I decided to rename it to Gaelic Reconstructionist Polytheism to better reflect where I'm at right now (and had been thinking about doing it for a while) - a bit of a mouthful, but the 'reconstructionist' bit seemed necessary to distinguish it from other kinds of Gaelic Polytheisms that aren't reconstructionist, like Sinnsreachd. Terminology: It's complicated.
There are some minor tweaks to the next article that's still up there - How To Get Started - and for now there's another article I've taken down while I decide what to do with it...There's a lot more that needs doing over all, especially for the links section, but I need to figure out how I can do that properly.
As ever, comments are welcome...
Since I started on this incarnation of the website in 2008 I've added quite a lot of articles and it's getting really unwieldy. There's not really much I can do about that right now, but after the latest slew of articles focusing on the gods, spirits and ancestors, I've kept thinking they need to organised a little better so I've finally split them off from the Cosmology section where I originally stuck them, and put them in their own section titled 'Gods'. I've also moved my old dissertation on the Dagda, and the article on the Cailleach into that section, seeing as they come under that heading too.
The biggest changes are in the Introduction section, though. As time goes by my thoughts on certain things are solidifying, I suppose, and lurking around various parts of the internet as I do I've seen some questions come up repeatedly. I've also seen some comments on what I've already written (and have been 'accused' of being American on one site, which amused me greatly. I'm not sure which amuses me more, though - whether it's because it seemed like that would be a bad thing, or because they decided I 'sound' American...) and some good points were made, so I decided to expand on the 'Celtic' Reconstructionism? article to address those. Some of it's just trying to clarify or explain things a bit better. Some of it I've added in to try and address the questions I see popping up a lot - like the differences between CR and Druidry.
The Scottish Reconstructionism article that followed on from 'Celtic Reconstructionism' has now been renamed and reworked a little too. I decided to rename it to Gaelic Reconstructionist Polytheism to better reflect where I'm at right now (and had been thinking about doing it for a while) - a bit of a mouthful, but the 'reconstructionist' bit seemed necessary to distinguish it from other kinds of Gaelic Polytheisms that aren't reconstructionist, like Sinnsreachd. Terminology: It's complicated.
There are some minor tweaks to the next article that's still up there - How To Get Started - and for now there's another article I've taken down while I decide what to do with it...There's a lot more that needs doing over all, especially for the links section, but I need to figure out how I can do that properly.
As ever, comments are welcome...
Tuesday, 23 August 2011
Frankenstein's ancestors...
Now here's something that's really interesting for you...
Ten ago the remains of several mummified corpses were found during a dig on South Uist - something that was exciting enough on its own, perhaps, but not least because they were then found to date from the Bronze Age. The evidence suggested that the corpses had been deliberately mummified, and had been placed in a bog for at least a year before being removed and then kept for many generations before they were finally buried.
Aside from being unique at the time, the find was exciting on a number of levels - providing evidence on Bronze Age burial practice, giving clear hints at what was presumed to be ancestor worship, as well as the implications as far as a belief in an afterlife are concerned, amongst other things.
The bodies were identified as male and female. Recent testing, however, has revealed that the mummies are in fact composites, made up of several different individuals and not all of the same sex:
Aside from there being implications in this new discovery as far as ancestor worship/veneration is concerned, it's also thought that:
(Somehow I doubt the various body parts came together by accident, so er, yeah...definitely deliberate). So not only is there possible evidence of ancestor worship here, the mummies could also be evidence of how social bonds were formed and maintained within a community - or one way in which that was done, at least. The find also raises some interesting questions about sex and gender in Bronze Age communities - is the mixing of sexes significant, relating to their function? Or perhaps the sex of the various corpses that were incorporated was incidental, and their status or role in the community was more significant...
Who knows. It's speculated that there are other mummies out there that may have been overlooked in the past - due to the state of their preservation, or whatever (once they're put in the ground, the mummified flesh wouldn't survive unless the conditions were just right, so you wouldn't necessarily realise that straight away). But given the fact that Bronze Age burial practice is something that seems to have continued into the the early Iron Age, there are some interesting questions there too.
Ten ago the remains of several mummified corpses were found during a dig on South Uist - something that was exciting enough on its own, perhaps, but not least because they were then found to date from the Bronze Age. The evidence suggested that the corpses had been deliberately mummified, and had been placed in a bog for at least a year before being removed and then kept for many generations before they were finally buried.
Aside from being unique at the time, the find was exciting on a number of levels - providing evidence on Bronze Age burial practice, giving clear hints at what was presumed to be ancestor worship, as well as the implications as far as a belief in an afterlife are concerned, amongst other things.
The bodies were identified as male and female. Recent testing, however, has revealed that the mummies are in fact composites, made up of several different individuals and not all of the same sex:
A team from the University of Sheffield first uncovered the remains of a three-month-old-child, a possible young female adult, a female in her 40s and a male under the prehistoric village of Cladh Hallan.
But recent tests on the remains carried out by the University of Manchester, show that the "female burial", previously identified as such because of the pelvis of the skeleton, was in fact a composite.
It was made up of three different people, and some parts, such as the skull, were male.
Radiocarbon dating and stable isotope analysis showed that the male mummy was also a composite.
Aside from there being implications in this new discovery as far as ancestor worship/veneration is concerned, it's also thought that:
"These could be kinship components, they are putting lineages together, the mixing up of different people's body parts seems to be a deliberate act," [Prof Parker Pearson] said.
(Somehow I doubt the various body parts came together by accident, so er, yeah...definitely deliberate). So not only is there possible evidence of ancestor worship here, the mummies could also be evidence of how social bonds were formed and maintained within a community - or one way in which that was done, at least. The find also raises some interesting questions about sex and gender in Bronze Age communities - is the mixing of sexes significant, relating to their function? Or perhaps the sex of the various corpses that were incorporated was incidental, and their status or role in the community was more significant...
Who knows. It's speculated that there are other mummies out there that may have been overlooked in the past - due to the state of their preservation, or whatever (once they're put in the ground, the mummified flesh wouldn't survive unless the conditions were just right, so you wouldn't necessarily realise that straight away). But given the fact that Bronze Age burial practice is something that seems to have continued into the the early Iron Age, there are some interesting questions there too.
Saturday, 20 August 2011
More on the Laois bog body
Following on from my previous post about the bog body from Laois...Good news everyone, it's not a woman, it's a sacrificed king! OK, it could be. Let's be clear on that.
What was originally thought to have been a pair of well-preserved female legs, with the rest of the body being in poor condition (having been placed in a leather bag), turns out to have been a mistake. Further analysis has shown that the body was simply in a very contorted position, and the 'leather bag' was actually the man's torso.
Naturally, it's now being speculated that this is a sacrificed king, as per The Golden Bough era of interpretation:
“Irish kings in the ancient period were replaced after a number of years. The old king would be sacrificed and a new king chosen. It ties in with their religious beliefs surrounding the solar deity (male) and the deity of the land (female). The king ties in with the solar cycle – the waxing and waning of the sun.
The idea was that the king was married to the sovereignty, or the land. The goddess would become old and withered and she would need a new young consort to return her to youth and vigor and beauty. So the old king would be killed and a new one take his place. They wouldn’t have been that old, either.”
But that's not all! Remember the article about Old Croghan Man, with the nipples "representing the life-giving sun" being cut off? Yup. The article about the Laois bog body has the same expert commenting:
Other researchers have apparently claimed that the state of Old Croghan Man's nipples could be nothing more than the result of damage to delicate tissue from the waterlogged conditions, and aren't necessarily purposeful or the result of ritual, so it's not really clear that the nipples are a marker of ritual activity at all.
Either way, once again there's nothing particularly substantial offered in the Laois bog body article to concretely link the body with a human sacrifice or kingship. It's assumed that this is (or is likely to be) a king; it's assumed that this is (or is likely to be) a sacrifice, but very little is offered to support or even counter those points in order to provide a little balance. Yes, bogs are liminal places, and it's well-known that such liminal places - neither one thing another (land or water, in this case) - are often a focus of ritual activity or mythological symbolism. But it's equally the case that bogs by their very nature provide conditions where bodies are more likely to be preserved, and so the very idea of 'bog bodies' being a ritual thing could really simply be the result of accidents of preservation skewing our view.
All in all, it's not a very balanced article. The issue of human sacrifice is by no means universally accepted because it's notoriously difficult to prove conclusively. We can compare the Irish or the Celts as a whole to other cultures at the time who were also said to have practiced human sacrifice at some point or other, and say that on the balance of evidence it's likely that the Celts did too. But we can't really prove that what we find in the bogs is indicative of sacrificial intent. We can see that many of these bodies were dispatched in very specific ways. We can see there might even be a lot of similarities in the method (the so-called 'triple-fold death' method).
All too often these things get wrapped up in assumption, without considering the other side of the coin - the skeptics, those who are a little more cautious to leap to such conclusions (that doesn't make for such an exciting article, though, does it?). Sometimes people get a little too caught up in the imagination and then you end up with claims like Lindow Man being sacrificed by druids at Bealltainn simply because some mistletoe pollen was discovered in the contents of his stomach.
I was trying to find an article on this called 'Did they fall or were they pushed? Some unresolved questions about bog bodies?' by C. S. Briggs - well worth a read if you want a good, balanced view of the for and against, in ands outs of human sacrifice. I couldn't find that available online but I did find these ones that cite him, and look like they have some interesting things to say:
'Humans as ritual victims in the later prehistory of Western Europe,' by Miranda Green
Bodies from the Bog: Metamorphosis, Non-human Agency, and the Making of 'Collective Memory,' by Stuart McLean
Lindow Man
They will be pay [sic] particular attention to the bog body’s nipples. Whether or not his nipples have been cut could indicate whether he was a king.
Kelly explained “The kissing or suckling of a king’s nipples was a gesture of submission,” Kelly said. “So by cutting the nipples, the king was being decommissioned.”
Other researchers have apparently claimed that the state of Old Croghan Man's nipples could be nothing more than the result of damage to delicate tissue from the waterlogged conditions, and aren't necessarily purposeful or the result of ritual, so it's not really clear that the nipples are a marker of ritual activity at all.
Either way, once again there's nothing particularly substantial offered in the Laois bog body article to concretely link the body with a human sacrifice or kingship. It's assumed that this is (or is likely to be) a king; it's assumed that this is (or is likely to be) a sacrifice, but very little is offered to support or even counter those points in order to provide a little balance. Yes, bogs are liminal places, and it's well-known that such liminal places - neither one thing another (land or water, in this case) - are often a focus of ritual activity or mythological symbolism. But it's equally the case that bogs by their very nature provide conditions where bodies are more likely to be preserved, and so the very idea of 'bog bodies' being a ritual thing could really simply be the result of accidents of preservation skewing our view.
All in all, it's not a very balanced article. The issue of human sacrifice is by no means universally accepted because it's notoriously difficult to prove conclusively. We can compare the Irish or the Celts as a whole to other cultures at the time who were also said to have practiced human sacrifice at some point or other, and say that on the balance of evidence it's likely that the Celts did too. But we can't really prove that what we find in the bogs is indicative of sacrificial intent. We can see that many of these bodies were dispatched in very specific ways. We can see there might even be a lot of similarities in the method (the so-called 'triple-fold death' method).
All too often these things get wrapped up in assumption, without considering the other side of the coin - the skeptics, those who are a little more cautious to leap to such conclusions (that doesn't make for such an exciting article, though, does it?). Sometimes people get a little too caught up in the imagination and then you end up with claims like Lindow Man being sacrificed by druids at Bealltainn simply because some mistletoe pollen was discovered in the contents of his stomach.
I was trying to find an article on this called 'Did they fall or were they pushed? Some unresolved questions about bog bodies?' by C. S. Briggs - well worth a read if you want a good, balanced view of the for and against, in ands outs of human sacrifice. I couldn't find that available online but I did find these ones that cite him, and look like they have some interesting things to say:
'Humans as ritual victims in the later prehistory of Western Europe,' by Miranda Green
Bodies from the Bog: Metamorphosis, Non-human Agency, and the Making of 'Collective Memory,' by Stuart McLean
Lindow Man
Thursday, 18 August 2011
Lùnastal
Summer is well and truly on its way out. The kids are back at school, the trees are hanging heavy with fruit, and the brambles are all but finished flowering and getting ready to ripen.
We've managed one whole ripened blueberry so far:
But once the rest start to ripen it looks like we'll be getting a bumper crop this year. In spite of the single, solitary ripe berry, I decided it was time to celebrate Lùnastal anyway; there's a chill in the morning air now, the days are drawing in, and the kids have gone back to school/nursery. From now on I think that will be a marker of autumn starting for us, because it ties in nicely with the summer ending and the new season beginning, and it tends to coincide with the kids needing new clothes and school uniforms, and having to think about the cooler or colder days ahead of us. It's a nice way to finish off the summer holidays and we still have time to fit most of the things I want to do in (in theory) without having to juggle it around school and homework and making sure the kids aren't too tired from a long day, and that they get to bed early enough etc.
So on Monday we celebrated, ahead of school starting on Wednesday. There wasn't much in the way of fruits to harvest, but I did manage to start harvesting some of the veg in the garden, so it was very much a start of the harvest season for us. The brilliant sunshine of the summer has turned to rain for the last few weeks or so, which has done wonders for the carrots and I realised they were looking about ready for pulling up. Whether it was because of the late start to the Spring season, or the fact that the soil was a little exhausted, or both, the veg has been slow to take off this year. I sowed the carrots back in May and I've read they should be about ready in 70 days or so, but they've only really just taken off.
Last year, I managed to harvest some gloriously mutoid looking Cthulu carrots:
This time round, I made sure I sowed the seeds a bit deeper, thinned the seedlings out properly if it was necessary, and had a go at making sure the soil was nice and loose. And this is what I ended up with:
There are still some growing - I tried a batch of purple carrots as well and they seem to be struggling to do much, along with a few more of these (I think they're a basic Nantes variety, but it just says 'organic carrot seeds' on the pack), but these ones came out spectacularly well. I pulled them up with a harvesting prayer (which I made up on the spot but with this sort of form in mind) - twisting each one out of the ground sunwise, and I managed to pull up a leek that had already matured as well (I think it grew from a leftover, broken off bit of leek I pulled up in the early Springtime, so it had a head start on the rest of the leeks I've sown, which languished for a long while in pots before I had the wherewithall to put them into the containers. They'll come later).
The onions aren't yet ready, but the carrots and the leeks meant I had the perfect opportunity for a good stew. The kids (and husband) clamored for a raw carrot each, and the rest went into to stew with the leek, some potatoes, onion, mushrooms, peas, and cabbage on the side. For afters I made cranachan and a choice of shortbread or oat crumblies to go with it, along with fresh raspberries; a good traditional harvest pudding. I had a go at some raspberry coulis as well. Once again the raspberry bushes in the garden haven't done much this year - no fruit, but at least they've grown well. Or one of them has. Hopefully that will help it survive the next winter a bit better, and give it a chance to fruit next year. The rowan has had a modest first fruiting, though:
Next year I might try picking some to dry and use for charms and such, like I did for my first year after moving here, but this year, these berries are for the spirits, I think.
So. We had dinner with our homegrown leek and carrots, followed by the cranachan (the crumblies were delicious, and follow a bannock sort of recipe so I counted them as that. It was a last minute decision and the first time I've tried them; I was going to try a struan bread to go with the stew but aside from a lack of funds to splurge on all of the ingredients at the moment, I'm a bit beyond being able to knead dough right now - still). Then, after dinner had settled a bit, the kids and I went outside to do some races - bike racing, scooter races, followed by a more sedate bubble blowing and catching competition at the kids' insistence. Tom decided he wanted to try riding his bike with the stabilisers off, so there was some wobbly and cautious attempts at that, too. We finished with a game of snap so I could join in as well, and the kids could calm down a bit before bed. Tom won at the scooting, while Rosie won at the cards so I declared them both champions; I declared that the bubbles couldn't have a winner after Rosie decided to use an umbrella to even out her slight height disadvantage against her older brother, but it was all in good fun and good spirits. For once Rosie didn't throw a strop at losing something, so the spirit of peace was kept.
After the kids went to bed I did my ritual stuff as usual - devotions, offerings, singing of praises, saining, protective charms, and so on. It was a still, quiet night and the clouds had dispersed enough for some stars to twinkle in the sky and the full(ish) moon was bright enough to cast moonlight shadows. I didn't catch any last bits of the meteor shower, though, but there was a gentle breeze that played with my hair as I meditated and talked into the night. The stillness and then the odd breeze now and then made it feel like I was being listened to, like the calm night air was swallowing my words and thoughts and taking its fill.
Once I'd done my devotions and the saining, most of the evening was spent making rowan charms - I tried a few different styles, and tried using beads and additional charms as well to make them a bit more decorative. After all that, sleep was most welcome.
In the morning there wasn't much time for anything because the kids and I had to get the train to meet my mother-in-law - she was very kindly splurging on Tom and Rosie's winter wardrobes and it was a last minute arrangement. I'd planned to make butter and cheese that day (our last day of freedom) - maybe some bread if I was up to it - and take the kids for a picnic down to the beach (there have been some sightings of sharks so we were going to go and see if we could spot them), but those plans have had to be put on hold. By the time we got home from shopping we were all pretty knackered, so there was just about enough energy for putting up our autumn decorations:
We did these a week or two ago. I promised Tom that we'd do some 'stained glass' pictures after he did them at school, and by the time we got around to it I figured we should take the opprtunity to resume our tradition of making seasonal decorations for the house. On one of our walks around the village - taking the dogs to the woods - we'd spotted a squirrel climbing up the pebble dashing of the school and at one point it clung on upside down and then flopped onto the guttering for a wee rest. The kids thought it was hilarious and we talked about how the squirrel would be stocking up on nuts for winter, and the conkers would be ripe soon, and so on, so that gave me the idea for our theme. I Googled for stained glass patterns and found this one, which I copied free hand onto card and then cut one out for each of us (I'd credit the source but I can't find it now...); Rosie needed a little help with hers, but this one is all Tom's own work (aside from me tidying up the edges). I think it came out well.
Along with sticking up our artwork, there was the experimenting with skeachan recipes too. That was about it, aside from more offerings to round off a sedate finish to the celebrations. For now. We'll probably try and do our picnic and dairy stuff at the weekend, if the weather improves.
We've managed one whole ripened blueberry so far:
But once the rest start to ripen it looks like we'll be getting a bumper crop this year. In spite of the single, solitary ripe berry, I decided it was time to celebrate Lùnastal anyway; there's a chill in the morning air now, the days are drawing in, and the kids have gone back to school/nursery. From now on I think that will be a marker of autumn starting for us, because it ties in nicely with the summer ending and the new season beginning, and it tends to coincide with the kids needing new clothes and school uniforms, and having to think about the cooler or colder days ahead of us. It's a nice way to finish off the summer holidays and we still have time to fit most of the things I want to do in (in theory) without having to juggle it around school and homework and making sure the kids aren't too tired from a long day, and that they get to bed early enough etc.
So on Monday we celebrated, ahead of school starting on Wednesday. There wasn't much in the way of fruits to harvest, but I did manage to start harvesting some of the veg in the garden, so it was very much a start of the harvest season for us. The brilliant sunshine of the summer has turned to rain for the last few weeks or so, which has done wonders for the carrots and I realised they were looking about ready for pulling up. Whether it was because of the late start to the Spring season, or the fact that the soil was a little exhausted, or both, the veg has been slow to take off this year. I sowed the carrots back in May and I've read they should be about ready in 70 days or so, but they've only really just taken off.
Last year, I managed to harvest some gloriously mutoid looking Cthulu carrots:
This time round, I made sure I sowed the seeds a bit deeper, thinned the seedlings out properly if it was necessary, and had a go at making sure the soil was nice and loose. And this is what I ended up with:
There are still some growing - I tried a batch of purple carrots as well and they seem to be struggling to do much, along with a few more of these (I think they're a basic Nantes variety, but it just says 'organic carrot seeds' on the pack), but these ones came out spectacularly well. I pulled them up with a harvesting prayer (which I made up on the spot but with this sort of form in mind) - twisting each one out of the ground sunwise, and I managed to pull up a leek that had already matured as well (I think it grew from a leftover, broken off bit of leek I pulled up in the early Springtime, so it had a head start on the rest of the leeks I've sown, which languished for a long while in pots before I had the wherewithall to put them into the containers. They'll come later).
The onions aren't yet ready, but the carrots and the leeks meant I had the perfect opportunity for a good stew. The kids (and husband) clamored for a raw carrot each, and the rest went into to stew with the leek, some potatoes, onion, mushrooms, peas, and cabbage on the side. For afters I made cranachan and a choice of shortbread or oat crumblies to go with it, along with fresh raspberries; a good traditional harvest pudding. I had a go at some raspberry coulis as well. Once again the raspberry bushes in the garden haven't done much this year - no fruit, but at least they've grown well. Or one of them has. Hopefully that will help it survive the next winter a bit better, and give it a chance to fruit next year. The rowan has had a modest first fruiting, though:
Next year I might try picking some to dry and use for charms and such, like I did for my first year after moving here, but this year, these berries are for the spirits, I think.
So. We had dinner with our homegrown leek and carrots, followed by the cranachan (the crumblies were delicious, and follow a bannock sort of recipe so I counted them as that. It was a last minute decision and the first time I've tried them; I was going to try a struan bread to go with the stew but aside from a lack of funds to splurge on all of the ingredients at the moment, I'm a bit beyond being able to knead dough right now - still). Then, after dinner had settled a bit, the kids and I went outside to do some races - bike racing, scooter races, followed by a more sedate bubble blowing and catching competition at the kids' insistence. Tom decided he wanted to try riding his bike with the stabilisers off, so there was some wobbly and cautious attempts at that, too. We finished with a game of snap so I could join in as well, and the kids could calm down a bit before bed. Tom won at the scooting, while Rosie won at the cards so I declared them both champions; I declared that the bubbles couldn't have a winner after Rosie decided to use an umbrella to even out her slight height disadvantage against her older brother, but it was all in good fun and good spirits. For once Rosie didn't throw a strop at losing something, so the spirit of peace was kept.
After the kids went to bed I did my ritual stuff as usual - devotions, offerings, singing of praises, saining, protective charms, and so on. It was a still, quiet night and the clouds had dispersed enough for some stars to twinkle in the sky and the full(ish) moon was bright enough to cast moonlight shadows. I didn't catch any last bits of the meteor shower, though, but there was a gentle breeze that played with my hair as I meditated and talked into the night. The stillness and then the odd breeze now and then made it feel like I was being listened to, like the calm night air was swallowing my words and thoughts and taking its fill.
Once I'd done my devotions and the saining, most of the evening was spent making rowan charms - I tried a few different styles, and tried using beads and additional charms as well to make them a bit more decorative. After all that, sleep was most welcome.
In the morning there wasn't much time for anything because the kids and I had to get the train to meet my mother-in-law - she was very kindly splurging on Tom and Rosie's winter wardrobes and it was a last minute arrangement. I'd planned to make butter and cheese that day (our last day of freedom) - maybe some bread if I was up to it - and take the kids for a picnic down to the beach (there have been some sightings of sharks so we were going to go and see if we could spot them), but those plans have had to be put on hold. By the time we got home from shopping we were all pretty knackered, so there was just about enough energy for putting up our autumn decorations:
We did these a week or two ago. I promised Tom that we'd do some 'stained glass' pictures after he did them at school, and by the time we got around to it I figured we should take the opprtunity to resume our tradition of making seasonal decorations for the house. On one of our walks around the village - taking the dogs to the woods - we'd spotted a squirrel climbing up the pebble dashing of the school and at one point it clung on upside down and then flopped onto the guttering for a wee rest. The kids thought it was hilarious and we talked about how the squirrel would be stocking up on nuts for winter, and the conkers would be ripe soon, and so on, so that gave me the idea for our theme. I Googled for stained glass patterns and found this one, which I copied free hand onto card and then cut one out for each of us (I'd credit the source but I can't find it now...); Rosie needed a little help with hers, but this one is all Tom's own work (aside from me tidying up the edges). I think it came out well.
Along with sticking up our artwork, there was the experimenting with skeachan recipes too. That was about it, aside from more offerings to round off a sedate finish to the celebrations. For now. We'll probably try and do our picnic and dairy stuff at the weekend, if the weather improves.
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