Our streak of no-rain days since we came to the U.K. ended today at nine — an amazing run, I think. But today is not just rain, it’s a full-fledged storm — cold, windy, and raw. Fortunately, the worst of it didn’t hit until about 3 this afternoon, so we were able to get out a bit this morning, and it’s kind of nice being forced into some down-time, sitting in our house drinking hot tea and listening to the rain pounding on the roof and windows.
Yesterday evening I took Suzie and the boys down to the shore of the Belfast Lough, where they walked along the seawall:
When we came home, we were pleased to find in our backyard a dog that looked very much like our own dog, Elsie. This Elsie-clone came through a hole in the hedge at the far end of the yard, and at first seemed like a very quiet and sluggish dog. But when we found a tennis ball, she turned into a crazed ball-chasing, leaping, running, playing puppy. She had eyes just exactly like Elsie, and made us miss our dog. I’m sure she’ll be back for more attention.
This morning (before the storm came), we went to the Ulster Folk Museum, northeast of Belfast. Not really a museum at all, it is situated on a beautiful wooded site, and consists of historical buildings moved from other parts of Ireland and restored and furnished to look like they did during the 18th and 19th centuries. It sounds a little hokey, but it was very well done; everything was completely authentic, and it was not overtly commercialized (it is a government museum). Some photos of the place follow. With the coldness, darkness, and dampness of the day, the heavy smell of fires fueled by peat moss, and the primitive, cramped living quarters, the visit there left me with a real sense of the harshness of life in rural Ireland and the deprivation its people must have suffered.
(Below is a picture of peat moss strips used as fuel for fires. It creates a very heavy, smelly smoke but burns very warmly.)
Tonight we are going to a lecture suggested by an colleague of our home-exchange partner, given by several former Irish Republican activists to talk about, as the e-mail says, “the great escape from the H-Blocks on 25th September, 1983.”
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