Happy Halloween!

Happy Halloween! :halloween:

We had a mini-crisis in the household this morning, for which I must thank the local bank. The daycare center that my children attends usually takes the children on a walking field trip down the block to the bank (fortunately there are no streets involved, just a field). The bank gives them trick-or-treat bags. Now normally they do this on the day of the Big Halloween Parade ™ and the kids simply stay in their costumes for a few hours. They changed the date this year and now we were left with the dilemma of whether or not to send them in a costume. Toddlers + Halloween costumes = MESS.

So after much wailing and gnashing of teeth, I decided that we would go with quick costumes. My son could put on his Home Depot construction hat along with a tool belt (which both could be taken off and he’d be left in jeans) and my daughter could be a cowgirl with a hat and vest. Much easier. Only they wouldn’t go for it. :hissyfit:

Son: “I want to be a green Power Ranger!”
Me: “You’re going to be that tonight. Now put this on. You’ll look like Bob the Builder.”
Son: “I don’t wanna look like a slob!”
Me: “If you don’t wear this, you’re not wearing a costume at all!”
Son: “I’m going to eat my breakfast really slow so I don’t have to go to school.” :blahblah:

Tonight should be really fun. Sigh.

Waterford

After we left Cashel, we drove to Waterford. We visited the crystal factory to watch them make all sorts of crystal vases, bowls, and even clocks. It’s amazing. The first step is where they actually make the glass. They remove red-hot molten glass from the ovens and shape it in the molds. You can see a picture of that here (apologies for the grainy pictures. My digital camera was out of power and the regular camera had bad film.).

Next, they might shape it even further, blowing the glass to fit the size of whatever they need. There are rigorous inspections and the workers are only paid for the pieces that pass. After that, the pieces are marked with felt pens both horizontally and vertically.

Basically the machine holds the pen and they rotate the glass as needed. This gives them a pattern where they can start to cut. The cutters use a cutting wheel with a diamond tip to carve the patterns into the crystal. They must memorize over 80 patterns in their 8-year apprenticeship training before they can work in the factory. The vertical cutters make a different type of cut, but it’s just as complex. My favorite workers to watch were the engravers. Capable of engraving human faces and highly-detailed forms, the engravers are true artists who must attend two years of art school.

After watching the level of intense, intricate work, I can now understand why Waterford crystal is so expensive. But there’s something fascinating about seeing molten sand become crystal. This crystal horse was one of my favorites. And it could be yours for the bargain price of a few thousand Euros.

The Annual Halloween Parade

Every year, my children’s daycare hosts a Halloween party and parade. It’s tomorrow, and I’m looking forward to seeing the kids’ costumes. It amazes me what they come up with nowadays. Everything from Thomas the Tank Engine, to a chicken, to Darth Vader. Last year my son was Yoda but this year, the boy had no desire to be one with the Force. Instead, he wants to be a green Power Ranger. I blame my sister-in-law. It’s not a show I’m fond of, but clearly I must be missing something. So in the morning, he will don his superhero costume and go off to battle the evils of Circle Time. :rotfl: I’ll post pictures later on.

My daughter waffles between being a princess and being Barney. Since I never bought a Barney costume, she gets to wear a purple princess gown, courtesy of Grandma. I actually have a tiara from an old Halloween costume I had as a child, but she refuses to wear it. We’ll see how this goes. I do think she’ll love trick-or-treating, since candy is involved.

What are your kids wearing for their costumes? Or if you don’t have kids, do you ever dress up for Halloween? :halloween:

Pumpkins

In case you haven’t seen it, the Harlequin Historicals authors have a blog now. I’m going to post more in-depth information on some of my Ireland research in case anyone is truly interested in all the little details. :blahblah:
I posted a little bit yesterday with a few more details you might not have seen here, so go check it out. You can even leave a comment so I don’t feel so alone. :loser:

Saturday was so much fun. I took my kids to the pumpkin patch and we bought the biggest pumpkin I’ve seen in a long time. What fun! I couldn’t lift it into the car, it was so big. It must be over 50 pounds. :halloween: I had to have my husband lift it out of the trunk. I don’t think this picture really does it justice, but at least you have an idea.

My other project was planting pansies. I love the fact that you can actually have flowers in wintertime in Virginia. It took a while to get them planted, but I’m pretty pleased with the results. The pink azaleas are Encore Azaleas that bloom in the fall.

What about you? Do you have any fall traditions in your household? (Among mine is raiding the Halloween candy stash before trick-or-treating. I’m so bad.) Have you gone pumpkin-shopping yet?

The Rock of Cashel

Our next stop after leaving Kilkenny was a visit to the Rock of Cashel. It’s the site where kings were crowned, notably the legendary High King Brian Boru. A 12th-13th century church was built on the remains of the former ring fort, complete with secret passageways for the abbot to spy on his priests or even escape in times of attack. One section of the tower was struck by a storm and blew over.

Here’s a view of the secret passageway. Inside the walls was the narrow area where the abbot could move around the church. While we were at Cashel, we saw many gravestones. I’m still bothered by the graves of infants and children. Another interesting item at the site was a cross of St. Patrick. It contained a hollowed-out section in the base to hide religious treasures, if needed. Also, the legend goes that if you hug the statue, you’ll never get a toothache. I can hear the ADA groaning now.

I was most interested in the frescoes and hidden paintings at Cashel. A few years ago, they were renovating a wall and came across a painting hidden beneath the whitewash. It makes you wonder who covered it up and why. There’s a story here . . . They also found more hidden paintings in a smaller chapel. Did they cover them up to protect them? Was it meant to hide certain images? Or maybe there’s a hidden religious treasure on the grounds, and the frescoes are the treasure map, and all we have to do is follow the clues! Sorry. Writer’s imagination got carried away there. But it is fun to imagine. I love stories like this.

By the way, I’m still trying to get the smilies fixed. If you have a preference for a particular one you’d like me to bring back, just let me know!

The Best Birthday Present Ever

Today is my birthday, and in all honesty, it’s the best one I’ve ever had. One month ago, I sold my first book. When my husband asked me what I wanted for my birthday, I couldn’t really think of anything (Okay, maybe some diamond earrings, but I digress…). Becoming a published author was always my life-long dream, and to finally have that in my hands is just amazing. Can you see me still smiling?

Seeing as it’s my birthday and a time for presents, I’m going to host a virtual birthday party. For cake, we’re having Death by Chocolate. In reality, my husband is baking me my cake today. It’s a Chocolate Turtle cake, topped with melted caramel, chocolate chips, and pecans. Mmmm….Beth gave me the recipe for this version of sin. But the cake is a little complicated. It involves whipping egg whites, using cake flour and buttermilk, and I’m wondering how successful my engineer husband will be. To him, cooking is chemistry. If you follow the directions, you’ll get it right. That’s true, assuming you have good instructions. We’ll see what kind of cake I end up with!

Then we’re taking the kids out to a Hibachi grill dinner at Japan Samurai (my choice). I love watching the chefs toss eggs and make flaming onion volcanoes. My husband just hopes the children don’t catch on fire (I second that thought!).

What’s the best birthday present you’ve ever received in your life?

The Round Tower

You may remember from an earlier post how miffed I was at not being able to visit Devenish Island’s round tower. I have a pretty key scene in Her Irish Warrior where the characters take refuge in a round tower for the night. While I watched videos and read about round towers, there’s something about going inside one that really makes a difference.

Imagine how pleased I was to hear that Kilkenny had its very own 9th century round tower, right beside St. Canice’s Cathedral. When I learned that it was only open until 5:00 p.m., I asked my fearless archaeologist guide to drop me off back in Kilkenny. He did, and I made it with about half an hour to spare. Just me and my round tower. And there was great happiness throughout the land.

The iron ladder leads up around 12 feet high to the entrance. People in need of sanctuary could use either a wooden ladder or a rope ladder to ascend. Originally, round towers were used for many purposes. Monks kept the entrance high off the ground for protection from both humans trying to steal religious treasures and to avoid moisture damage. Another purpose of the round tower was much simpler. It was a show of strength and power. Anyone can see a round tower for miles around. To think that this round tower was over eleven hundred years old is just staggering. A third reason for the round tower was to sound the canonical hours. Bells might have been hung from the top to alert the common folk.

Inside the round tower were multiple levels. I think I counted around 8 floors total. The interior is narrow in diameter, about 10 feet wide with thick stone walls. Although wooden stair-ladders were presnt here, I’ve heard that rope ladders were also common to reach the 6 to 8 floors typical of a round tower. There are also almost no windows on the lower floors. Near the top, I counted 6 windows. The wind was really powerful up near the top, and the temperature was much cooler. This round tower was missing the top (I’ll show you a completed round tower at the Rock of Cashel in my next blog post) and so the locals made it into an observatory of sorts. You could see the entire city of Kilkenny from the very top.

That night, we tried to find a pub with traditional Irish music. One thing we learned was that most Irish music doesn’t start until 10:30 p.m. Due to the higher latitude of Ireland, it’s actually light outside until almost 10:00 p.m. It’s nice during the summer, being able to enjoy so much sunlight. After a full day of touring, we were usually dead on our feet, but this time we thought we’d try to stay up. (You know you’re getting old when 10:30 is considered way past your bedtime. It’s a hazard of parenting toddlers. You take sleep whenever you can get it!)

But this time, only one pub was playing music and the singer was pitch-challenged. Oh well. I finally made it inside my round tower, and that’s what counts, right?

By the way, there’s still time to enter my Halloween Contest on the For Readers page. Good luck!

Kilkenny Castle and becoming Indiana Jones

Kilkenny is a medieval city, the first capital of Ireland. It still holds that quaintness, the medieval flavor of narrow stone streets, a castle, and a cathedral and round tower. We toured Kilkenny Castle first, which was a great place with fun antiques and even secret servant entrances. It was first built in the 12th century and the Butler family lived there until the 1960’s when they sold it to the state for 50 pounds. Over and over the castle was added onto, refurbished, and expanded. It’s truly gorgeous with a rose garden and park.

After that, I had an appointment to meet with an Irish archaelogist., Patrick O’Neary. I owe him a great deal of thanks for helping me to learn about the differences between a medieval ring fort and a Norman ringworks. What better way than to plan Indiana Jones for the afternoon? So, I abandoned my husband and father-in-law, and went off on an adventure. We drove out into the countryside with his fearless daughter and braved the dangers of blackberry bushes, wire fences, steep ditches, electric cattle fences, and killer Basset Hounds.

The first thing I learned was that ring works were 1000-year-old fortresses built by the Normans. All ring works were built near a church and a water source. The Norman leaders typically supported the local clergy and vice-versa. To identify an old fortress site, we were looking for an unnatural hillside with a ditch. A ring work could be small or large, and usually the houses or structures would be made of wood. The first ring works site we visited was near an industrial park and it was a bit odd to see a parking lot beside an ancient church like this one.

Ring forts, or raths, in contrast were made by the Irish and did not necessarily have a church nearby. The ring fort we visisted had a huge ditch (around 9-12 feet deep) and the distance from one side of the ditch to the other was about 15 feet, maybe more. We were hunted down by a farmer’s killer Basset Hound (who wanted to lick us to death), while we climbed to the top of the ring fort. Trees were everywhere, except in the clearing where the homes would have been. Blackberry bushes covered that area instead. If you could imagine a 2-3 meter high wooden palisade fence encircling it, you can understand that this was a very strong, highly defendable site. Unless a great deal of planning took place, this size of ring fort would have been safe from invaders. At a distance, this looks mostly like a grove of trees, but when you come closer, the ditch and high hill are evident. Most of my characters in my books dwell within ring forts, of different sizes.

I’ll admit, it was fun playing archaeologist for the afternoon. I’ve always wanted to go on a real dig, to search for artifacts and wonder about where they came from. If you could go on a dig, which time period would you want to investigate?

Finishing the night off at a pub

After the archaelogical museum closed at 5:00 p.m., we had plans to meet a friend of mine, Daisy Cummings (who writes for Presents as Abby Green). A native Dubliner, she lives in a unique part of the city called the Liberties. When we drove past that area, it reminded me of an open marketplace. It was like Sam’s Club (a discount warehouse) outside. People are allowed to sell whatever they like there, and it had a young, hip feel to it.

Daisy booked a reservation for us at Gallagher’s Boxty for dinner. It’s a good thing she did! You’ll never find a table in Dublin if you just show up. You’ll be waiting hours. That surprised me, because in the U.S., you’d never book a reservation at a casual restaurant. But here, it was a necessity.

I decided to try a boxty for my meal. It’s a pancake made from potatoes, and it’s as thin as a crepe. Rolled up inside the pancake was the most amazing chicken and sauce I’ve ever had. Heaven on a plate, I tell you. Toward the end of our meal, the hostess reminded us that we needed to hurry up and finish because the table was booked for another party. This was polar opposite to most meals we had in Ireland. If you’re finished with your meal and want to pay, you have to practically hunt your waiter down and trip him in order to get the bill. Usually once you’re there, the table is yours for the night. In fact, when we had dinner in Clifden a week earlier, I learned that they actually turn people away at the door, saying the restaurant is full. There’s no waiting period, because they assume that once people are there for the meal, they’ll be there for the remainder of the time. Interesting.

After we were kicked out our meal was over, we said our goodbyes and took a taxi back to the DART station. I really did like Dublin. It’s a city with energy, lots to do, and very friendly people. I can’t wait to return!

What’s your favorite city to visit?

The Dublin Archaelogical Museum

If I could go back to Dublin and spend one entire day in a place, it would be at the Dublin Archaelogical Museum. This was a prime research spot for my books because I could go and see the swords used in the 12th century. I could see the cups and bowls they used, inspect the jewelry worn by the women, and see the mummified remains of a Viking. It was truly amazing.

In the book I just finished, Her Irish Lover, my hero’s hands were crushed by the enemy and the heroine helps him heal until he can wield a sword again. One critical bit of information I needed to know was how large the swords were and whether they were one-handed swords or two-handed swords, like a Scottish claymore. I think it’s pretty evident from the examples here, that most were one-handed swords. The hilts were inlaid with ivory and wood. They were designed for cutting with the edge, not stabbing with the point.

Shields were also used in battle, and here shown below, on the right side of the photograph, is an example of the type of metalworking you might see upon a wooden shield.

Another item I found interesting was the drinking vessels. Here, on the left are glazed wine jugs.

In this photograph(to the right side next to the metal bowls are wooden drinking vessels, made from alder and yew woods. These were designed for groups, and would be passed around the table to the guests. In the same photograph on the top left, you’ll see glass beakers. Yes, glass. Pretty amazing, I think.

The last photograph I want to share today is of the lamps used inside the homes. These small lamps were made of stone filled with oil and had wicks. They could be burned at night to illuminate the huts. The metal “lamps” were used to hold more expensive candles. They carved the lamps in different shapes such as a lion or a woman. In the same photograph at the bottom are examples of iron knives. They were frequently used at meals, spoons being used less often. Forks did not come into being until the end of the medieval period.

If you could see any artifact from the medieval period, which would you enjoy seeing most?