Toorah, Loorah, Looral!
Well, I’m off.
Of course, there are those who would say I’ve been off for years, but what do they know?Anyway, by the time this blog posts I shall be in the land of shamrocks and leprechauns and frosted Lucky Charms. Oh. Wait. Frosted Lucky Charms are as American as Danny Boy, now that I think about it… but still.
Ireland. Eire.I’ve been dreaming about this trip for a year. I hope all goes well. I hope I’m having a wonderful time as you read this–and I wish you were all here. There. Wherever. But what could go wrong? I mean, aside from the airline losing my luggage like usual and me falling off Croagh Patrick? They don’t have snakes, and I’ve already wiped out half the world’s honey bee population, so…what could happen?Yep, I’m off on holiday. Two weeks of fun and…
Ireland. Two weeks.TAX DEDUCTIBLE.Me and the sibs are taking one of those guided tour thingies. Ah, but with a difference. This one is put on by our old musical mentors, The Men of Worth, and it’s going to be wine, women and song every night. Well, song, anyway. And walking and Guinness — and lots of rain, apparently.
Which is good by me.So, while I rush around taking my No Jet Lag and stuffing last minute items into my suitcase, I’ll leave you with the following questions:1) Have you ever decided to vist a place based on a fiction novel? (It was the Cliffs of Night by Beatrice Brandon, for me)2) What’s the furthest you’ve been from home?
3) For those of you who write — Have you used your travels in your writing? And for those of you who don’t write — How much armchair travel do you like in your mystery novels?
I’ll leave you all with another of my favorite poems by W.B. Yeats, and yes, Grace Hollister will most definitely be traveling to Ireland in the future. Not one of Yeats’ happier efforts, but effective.
Never give all the Heart
Never give all the heart, for love
Will hardly seem worth thinking of
To passionate women if it seem
Certain, and they never dream
That it fades out from kiss to kiss;
For everything that’s lovely is
But a brief, dreamy, kind delight.
O never give the heart outright,
For they, for all smooth lips can say,
Have given their hearts up to the play.
And who could play it well enough
If deaf and dumb and blind with love?
He that made this knows all the cost,
For he gave all his heart and lost.