Sunday, May 10th, 2009
My mother and I arrived in Shannon, Ireland a few hours ago and have checked into the 5-star Dromoland Castle with the rest of our tour group. We have already taken a nap (didn’t get much sleep on the 6-hour flight from JFK Airport to Shannon), but we have started exploring the grounds of the castle and have scheduled spa services for 4:30 tomorrow afternoon.
I have taken some beautiful photos of the castle and will hopefully download those soon. The weather has been sunny, but a little chilly, in the 40s and 50s.
We will be attending a reception at 6 pm to meet all of the other 32 people on the tour, although we have met some already. We also ran into 2 people not associated with our tour from Asheville who are at the end of their trip and they gave us some fun advice. Some of the others on our tour are from SC, NC, OH, and TX. I look forward to seeing where else everyone is from.
Our day tomorrow starts at 7:30 am and we will be going out to the Cliffs of Mohr and then will have the afternoon free for our spa services. I hope to go out for a run around the property since it is large enough and it also has a golf course. I can probably follow the golf course and don’t think I’ll get lost. The terrain seems relatively flat (at least compared to Asheville) with some gently rolling hills. Beautiful nonetheless and I’m looking forward to the run.
Will post more as our trip progresses.
Tuesday, May 5th, 2009
I’ve been trying to do as much gardening as possible before I leave for Ireland this Saturday. I have just about gotten the majority of projects started or completed. It is a great relief the see the fruits of my labors over the past couple of months as a lot of stuff has bloomed, is in bloom, or is getting ready to bloom.
I have been planting a lot of oranges and purples, my two favorite colors. I have found some vibrant orange azalea bushes at two of the local Ingles Grocery stores and I love them! 
I have paired them with purple azaleas and two lilac bushes in front of the house and down the side of the slope in between the arborvitae trees. I still need to get another 6 bushes to complete that project, but it seems that only Ingles has the orange ones and I snagged all that I could (only $17 each).
I also broke my back finishing the stone path on the opposite side of the gazebo, but I think it looks great! I planted some lemon thyme and lime thyme on the edge and in between some of the stones and so as they spread, they will fill in some of the space between the stones. With the extra stones that I didn’t use, I stacked them up in the corner of the fence and created a stacked sculpture.
I’ve also been doing a lot of container planting, on the patio and the front porch. Other than buying plants and potting soil, I’ve been able to use and re-use pots and containers I’ve had taking up space around the Inn. Here are some miscellaneous photos of my container plants. See if you can guess what the plants are (there are some that came back this year and I honestly don’t know what they are).
