Samhain sona dhíbh uilig! Happy Hallowe’en to everyone!

It’s a gorgeous sunny day with a not a cloud to be seen in the sky - a rare thing indeed! We had frost last night and that helped. It is cold as it should be this time of year. Here’s hoping for a prolonged spell of this cold crisp DRY sunny weather.

It’s the fag-end of the wettest August since records began and I’m fighting off the end-of-summer blues. After a manic and very successful Summer Music on the Shannon 2008 three weeks of which I spent on-campus in UL, and a three day holiday shared between Baile Bhúirne and Killarney, it’s back to the grind stone!

Please please have the rain stop! Please please please let the sun blaze down for the next 6 weeks! Is that too much to ask for?

This evening, coming out of Ennis, I noticed a couple of whitethorn (aka hawthorn, or Maythorn - Crataegus monogyna L.) bushes finally coming into flower. So, given the muggy steamy weather we’re having, I expect the countryside will explode in white blossom in the next few days.

This year it’s 2 weeks late - I recorded first seeing the first hawthorn blossoms in 2007 on 30th April.

Bealtaine shona dhíbh uilig!

It’s Beltane today and traditionally the first day of Summer in the ancient Irish and pagan calendar. May we have a good one this year - hopefully we won’t experience the washout we had in July-August 2007 again for many a long year.
The blackthorn (Prunus spinosa) is late in flowering this year - I noticed the first blooms only yesterday (30 April) - due to the unseasonably cold weather we’ve experienced throughout much of April. Last year it started flowering on 5 April 2007 - see here. I recorded first seeing the Whitethorn (aka May Flower, or Hawthorn) - Crataegus monogyna - coming into flower last year on 29 April 2007. This year there is no sign of it yet, though it is sporting a full set of leaves.

Of course today is Samhain and the first day of Winter down under (Australia and New Zealand) according to the pagan calendar. Samhain shona dhíbh uilig ansin! Hope you have a good one.

We got up this morning to a highly unusual white landscape. It had snowed during the night - about 1cm - and covered everything in a carpet of white. Last night must have been the coldest in a long while - it measured -3.5°C on our roof at midnight, and was still below zero this morning. The strong winds make it feel even colder. The children are all excited of course, but it leaves me cold. I had a 10am appointment in Limerick city this morning and have had to cancel. If the bloody weather forecasters (MET Eireann) had done their job and warned us of this last night I would have got up a lot earlier so I could make my appointment. But they never mentioned snow for this part of the country high up or low down. They’re bloody useless.

When I arrived this morning at St. Flannan’s Hall for rehearsal for this afternoon’s CMM Christmas Concert, I was disappointed to find that the concert had been postponed until after Christmas due to flooding from the very heavy rain and high winds we’ve been having for the last few days. Bummer!

I’m sure everybody else is just as disappointed that we didn’t get to play after all. Even though the concert will go ahead after Christmas (apparently) it won’t be the same as Christmas will be over, and playing the carols adds to the enjoyment of the whole thing.

Oh well! Here’s hoping for a good one anyway.

Winter has finally arrived with grey skies, torrential rain and colder weather than we’ve had in quite a while.

This morning’s horrible weather didn’t help in getting into a good groove for the week. It’s currently 10°C in Kilmaley under a sky of solid shades of grey threatening to unleash another deluge.

October is here! September didn’t hang about for long this year! Here come the shortening days and lengthening nights - and frost (hopefully), storms (the less the better) and such like. Here comes the yearning after the memory of long sunny summer days and moon-drenched starry nights and the sweet scent of coumarin. Welcome in the approaching winter.

After a somewhat pleasant morning, it has now been pissing rain straight down from a leaden sky for the last 2 hours and shows little sign of a let-up.

Conversely, they are suffering from record heat in Eastern Europe. While in the southern half of Spain, the thermometre has gone above 45°C for the first time this Summer - which is normal in that part of the world. We have a few Spaniards coming over to the Summer Music on the Shannon festival again this year. They will be absolutely delighted with our rain and pleasantly cool temperatures, as they always are!

After a glorious day yesterday - the first without rain for a month and a half! - and a nice morning this morning, it’s back to spilling rain and gloom once more. It was too good to last I suppose

Day 2 of SMS is down and I’m very tired - so tired I can’t bring myself to work any more, so I’m calling it quits for the day.