What a busy time, an engagement, a graduation, and an overgrown garden in Ireland!

Well what a quiet house here, just David and I. We seem to have gone from one thing to another since I last had down to write to you including a number of celebrations.
Our first celebration was of Charlotte and Angus's engagement. Unexpected, even for Charlotte! but we were over the moon about it. A few tentative plans in that the wedding will be abroad, small, possibly September 2015 but that's all for now.
Second celebration was for Jonathan's graduation from Loughborough. A scorching hot day (I had the foresight to take a pair of very old comfy sandals to walk around in before I had to change into my best ones!) but very enjoyable.

We took a picnic and having parked in the grounds of the hall where Jonathan had lived for most of his Uni life, found a shaded spot under a tree to eat.

A good move - quiet and cool.

After graduation day we were at a family party to celebrate the fact that my cousin was over from America. From there David, Jonathan and I went straight to Liverpool to catch the over night ferry to Dublin. It's a good way to travel for us as we get a good nights sleep plus meals before our drive to Schull. 

Can you Schull on the map? Go to the left of Skibbereen, past Ballydehob and slightly down - yes that's it.

There's a good motorway from Dublin to Cork here it is

Seriously, that's how it was a lot of the way - the main route from Dublin to Cork deserted, how I wish our motorways were like that.! The weather did get worse the nearer we got to the south west and by the time we reached the house it felt like November, rain, mist and fog although warm and it remained liked that the following day too. The garden looked like this when we arrived

in between like this

 there was a lot of this

 till finally it looked like this

Quite an achievement, but there wasn't only the garden work to be done and it's not all work which you will see next time.