Quiet Ha'Penny Night

Last night after posting the pictures of the bridge at night, I noticed that the water was still. I love to see the reflections in the water, especially at night.

Night time Views

Last night the sky was interesting so I decided to take some pictures of the Ha'Penny Bridge from my apartment.

Construction workers

On Sunday night while talking on the phone, I realized that there were a bunch of ambulances, fire trucks, and police cars outside our apartment and along the quays. John told me that someone had either jumped or fallen in and they were rescuing the person. When I looked out the window, I saw the gardi wrestling with someone and handcuffing him. Apparently, he had gotten into a fight with a garda. Oops. So, there was a lot of commotion on the street in front of me. Sirens, onlookers, police, firefighters, divers.

And construction workers. While all the commotion was happening with the person in the river and another fighting the garda, the construction workers kept jackhammering the street. They looked like they were having fun and joking around but they were working. At 11:00 PM!!! Last night, we wanted to go to bed early. We couldn't. The construction work was too loud for us to sleep. Again, this was 11:00 PM.

Now, I am in favor of road work being done at night. It alleviates traffic difficulties for commuters. I am also impressed that construction workers are willing to work into the night. However, do they have to do noisy work so late at night? Couldn't they do the noisy work until, say, 10:30? That is a reasonable hour for people to go to sleep. I understand and agree with noisy work for all hours of the night for highway work. However, the quays are a residential area, albeit a loud one.

Friends

John took the picture of Tiffin looking at Darshin on the cat tower. He likes it when I give him credit for pictures. I cropped the picture, though...

Salad?

On Wednesdays, I go out to lunch with my mate S. We go to a small little cafe with the paninis and you get to pick a salad. These salads are things like broccoli salad, apple salad, potato salad, fruit salad, etc.

On Friday, we went to a pub for lunch. I got a roll and got to pick two "salads" to go with it. I chose tomatoes and "green salad." How is tomato considered a salad by itself? Other choices were onions, corn, lettuce (green salad), pasta salad. Sometimes places also have cucumbers or pickled peppers. Now, how are these salads? Toppings, yes. Salad, no. They can be ingredients for salad. Salads are things with a variety of ingredients mixed together with some dressing.

School's Out

The end of the school year always has special meaning for me. As a child, I was always sad because I loved school. Since I have started working, it is a time of relief. Even if I don't work in a school, I am somehow still clued into the school cycle. Schools are somehow comfortable for me. I think because I have spent most of my career working in them, they are familiar. I know what to expect because there is a general school culture and norms are similar in every one that I have worked in. Yes, every school is different, but they still tend to be familiar and comfortable.

In many ways, special education schools that I have worked in are the same. They are more laid back than regular education schools. There can have a more functional curriculum. You can spend an entire school year trying to get behavior under control and have that be a successful year. You can take the children out to the shops for a reward and it is a functional educational experience. The children overall also seem pretty happy. They are friendly and happy to see me when I come in the room. In a general education classroom, kids start to dread you coming to get them/coming in the room at some point.

Schools can also be challenging. I think you have to show investment and understanding in the children, school, and staff before teachers will really willingly work with you. Some staff may have a long warm up period. In a previous job, it took 3 years before I felt like I was truly accepted by the teachers and teaching assistants. Teachers have so many people telling them how to do their job and not always the best training to do it. Teachers really do try hard to do what is best for all of the children but it is really difficult. If they have a class of 25, there are 25 individual needs that they need to try to meet while teaching the standard curriculum. When you add in a child with special needs, it really throws off the balance of the classroom. It can be quite successful, especially when the child has the proper supports, whatever they may be for that child. I think it takes a lot of commitment on the part of the school, teachers, and parents in order to make integration/inclusion work. It also takes funding. If teachers had fewer children in the class if they had a child with special needs, I think that it would help. Then there wouldn't be so many demands placed on the teacher. Teachers also need more training in special education.

Tiffin

After much deliberation, we have named the new little girl. Her name is Tiffin. She is very cute and taking a nap on my lap/arms/keyboard right now. She likes to hop across the keyboard but we are trying to teach her not to do that. She also has learned that she can knock things off tables. She continues to play well with Darshin. He even grooms her already!

New Kitten

Darshin has been very lonely since Caineal died. Last Wednesday, I went to the vet to pick up her remains so we can scatter the ashes one day soon. The vet gave them to us in a very nice box that has a space for a picture and her name on it.

Anyway, while at the vet, I asked the receptionist where we could get a kitten or cat to keep ours company. She said that they had three and I could look at them. Of course I did. They were all very cute. I liked the long haired one better but she was very shy. There was one with more white but I was told he was the naughty one of the litter. I don't need another naughty kitten. So, I picked this one up and she just purred on my shoulder.

Today I brought her home! Darshin and little girl (not named yet) seem to be getting along pretty well and have been playing together all evening. Darshin keeps trying to get her to chase but she hasn't learned that game yet...

Dingle Peninsula

While in Kerry, we toured the Dingle Peninsula. It was beautiful and these end the Kerry pictures.

Ring of Kerry

While down in Kerry, we drove the Ring in one day. Of course I took loads of pictures but here are some of my favorites.






During the drive through the Ring of Kerry, there was a look out point called Ladies View. It is quite nice and had some interesting rock formations with a tree growing out of one.

Flowers

There were a lot of pretty flowers blooming in Kerry so I decided to start taking some pictures of them. I used to take a lot of flower and up close nature pictures when I was a child but then stopped for some reason. So, here are some flowers of Kerry...

Kerry "castle"

While staying in G's holiday home in Glenbeigh, I could see what looked like remains of a castle from the kitchen window. Since I love castles, I thought I would check it out and asked if John's sister MC wanted to come with me. We walked up a road around the castle and saw a caravan park. I am jealous of the views that the residents got.





So, we kept walking up on the road. Some residents told us that the castle was built in the 1800s. The architect didn't weatherproof it correctly so it started to fall apart from the salt water and rain. Oops. The architect supposedly got sued. Now, they are just neat remains.

We finally found a house that had easy access to the castle grounds so we wandered around in it. The land in front of the castle seemed a little like a bog. I am betting that the architect didn't account for that either.

Killarney National Park

There is a large national park near Killarney that is quite pretty. There are many easy trails but also some less paved/more rugged ones. Here are some pictures from a walk that John's sister MC and his mom and I took while waiting to pick John up at the train station.