I had a couple of opportunities for service this week on Saturday. I volunteered to help out at the Parkrun on Saturday morning and I ended up running the stop watch to time the runners as they came across the finish line. There was a light drizzle all morning but had a good time with the other volunteers and it is nice to take a turn helping out to keep the run viable. After I was finished there I drove over to the Hogan's place. They are a young couple in our branch that were moving to a new place. The young Elders and a couple of other men from the ward were there and we had all of their things moved in not much time at all. Again it was nice to be able to help out. We live near the main hospital here in Limerick and across the street from the hospital is the ambulance centre. Vive la difference! They have two kinds of ambulances here, one that is called Intermediate Care and the other Emergency. The former is used for transfers, taking people to appointments who need transportation etc. and the later is for, well, emergencies. The service seems to operate independently and having the Intermediate Care ambulances frees up the other ones so they are available if there is a true emergency. Maurene and I went out for a walk this week one evening and I took some photos of the facilities. We took a short drive out to Craggaunowen this week to see the historic park out there. It is located between Limerick and Galway. The forest park consists of a number of structures and villages that represent the way people lived in Ireland in the past. It was a beautiful peaceful place and we really enjoyed our visit. There was a little gift shop and cafe at the entrance where we had some soup and a scone after our visit. It was a very interesting place. It makes you thankful you don't have to live in those primitive conditions but also amazes you about how inventive they were to create ways to get things done. When we were arriving we noticed some animals that looked like goats. We were told they were sheep and they didn't need to be sheared, the wool just comes off them when it gets long. The entrance was a cute little cottage. The first stop in the park was the castle that was built around 1550. It was very high and you got a good view of the area from the top. There was a park worker in the castle who was spinning wool from their sheep and did weavings. The next stop was the Crannog. This was a small man made island that people lived on for protection. They built small round thatched houses that were pretty dark inside. There was a worker there that was dying wool in a pot over an open peat fire. The next thing we saw was the Iron Age Road which dates back many years and was found in a bog. Would have been a pretty bumpy ride! We next visited the Brendan, which was a ship built in 1976 and sailed from Ireland to the west coast of North America. The were trying to recreate the voyage made by St. Brendan the navigator in the 6th century. It was made of oak tanned hides. We finished off our visit with a walk in the woods where we encountered some wild boars and then some soup and a scone at the little cafe at the gates. It was a great afternoon. We decided to drive a different way back to Limerick down some back roads and came across a little town called Quin. It is Maurene's favourite little Irish village so far, next to Adare. We took some time to walk around and also visit the ruins of a the local monastery.
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AuthorThis is the blog of Elder Tom and Sister Maurene Wilson of our mission to the Scotland/Ireland Mission. Archives
October 2016
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