Friends, Food Party aka Holiday in London!

Greetings friends and family! It's been quite a while, my apologies. I was being a fill in house mother as the real one was in Switzerland and I had to fill in. So for a full two weeks I was under some stress to keep a house of farmers together. Thankfully my darling house mother returned a week ago and I promptly got to go on holiday myself to London England for a week to see a darling friend Kathryn and spend time with her family. Such a fun treat. Kathryn is on the short list I would say for our adopted daughters, as she is one of my few friends who feels comfortable to be in my house with out me. I have found that that is the case with a lot of my friends, and I couldn't be happier so I thought a trade would be nice so I spent the past weekend with her Mum and sister in Somerset. But I'm getting ahead of myself. The first part of the week I spent with Kathryn in London. She's recently moved in with some of the most delightful people I've met in a long tim. Keep in mind this is my first vacation in seven months. My first time out of the friendly bubble that I have come to know in Dingle. So it was much more of a culture shock for me as I am used to people waving and being friendly where ever I go, and of course a city environment is very different. But so nice to be surrounded by such a fast environment again, I forgot how much I love cities. My first night me, kathryn and her three house mates all had a great evening, where I got to see what a great group of people live in this flat, they had competitions for who can make the weirdest noises while washing up and playing blind basketball in the sitting room. Funnily this behavior is so normal for me at this rate, but it was so nice to see so many people that are so content with who they are and not afraid to make fools of themselves and laugh about it, so we just spent the first night all laughing and being goofy together. So this introduction was such a great first day of my holiday. The following couple days we watched films, went thrift store shopping, and drank coffee in the coolest cafes. We also had a very romantic/cold picnic with pasta and individual plastic wine glasses filled with wine. Amazing afternoon, then we went and tried to bother the queen but no luck. After London I made the journey to Somerset to see Kathryn's mum and spent a relaxing weekend getting to know her and Kathryn's sister Anna. Such a lovely home, reminds me of my home and my grandmother's house combined, filled with pictures, and memories everywhere. Lovely, to sit by the fire for hours reading and just relaxing in a proper home. Nice change from the madness that I am normally surrounded by. We went to an amazing concert at Wells Cathedral which is by far the most incredible cathedral I've ever been to and if any of your are ever in Wells you must go. Fun fact about Wells is also that Hot Fuzz was partially filmed in this quant village (Graham and Wes that was for you). I also got to spend the day in Glastonbury which was a great little town, VERY hippesque, reminded me of Johnson Vermont. Filled with lovely charity shops, and cute cafes. I went to the Glastonbury Abbey and saw the ruins that were left behind, they were incredible. Also met up with Kathryn on Sunday and we hiked up to the Torr which is a tower on top of a hill in Glastonbury with an amazing view at the top. After my return to London we had an amazing dinner party, filled with kitchen dancing and good friends. Such a nice way to end an amazing week. Upon my return to Ireland I straight away met up with two lovely girls who I started in Camphill with. The time way back in September when I started was some of the happiest times of my life, and it was just filled with tons of laughter and goofyness, which is just where we picked up now. A lot has changed since they have been gone but that hasn't stopped us from having a great time. One of the girls is here with her family and we all went to the cinema and then to the pub to see a friend play music. Now this pub evening really made me realize the magic of the town where I am living. I'm going to try and paint an image of what was there..... You walk into a huge open room, bar on your left and around the room are tables and benches. Every seat is filled and the pub is completely silent. Off to the right next to the fire is a group of five musicians in a circle, playing everything from the banjo to the flute and mandolin. We got our seats and then your only job is to listen, but what's so amazing about Irish musicians is they have file cabinets in there brains filled with Irish songs, so someone would suggest a song and the musicians would know it and then everyone in the bar who would know it would just start to sing, clap or hum. It was such a special moment to sit in a pub that is dead silent and all you hear is amazing music and all you see are faces entranced by the moment. I think this has such an impact on me because you would rarely find this in a bar in the states. I am basically saying that anybody that likes music should seriously come to Dingle because it is honestly some of the best undiscovered musicians in the world. This weekend is of course Easter which is very exciting, it has been holy week in Camphill and I will rejoin tomorrow where we beach clean, turn off all technology until Sunday. On Saturday evening (weather permitting) we will have a bonfire that we will all keep going all night by each staying up with the fire for an hour, looking at like a meditation, each person who wants will stay with the fire for an hour. Pretty special, followed by Sunday morning outdoor mass at 6 am. Then an egg hunt in the afternoon. So a lot is happening. I hope you all an amazing Easter, it will be my first one away from home and has come to be one of my favorites, really sad to miss it. Anyway, mine here will still be very special!!! xxElsie

When Life Gives You Lemons....Make Lemonade

Greetings to my dear friends and family! I hope everyone stayed indoors on the east coast....saw that certain parts of New England got a good dumping, sad to not be able to enjoy it! It is officially spring in Ireland which for me is insane! It's slowly getting warmer and that is a real treat especially in February. The sun has been shining a lot and for the Irish this is rare and so it boosts everyone's moods. It's amazing what seeing the sun after weeks can do, I remember one breakfast where when we all saw the sun we proceeded to have a highly musical meal where it was like we were in our own musical.....yeah we are special here in Dingle. There has been some big changes for me in the recent past few weeks that have proven to be a real test along with my daily tasks that are not easy either! I have been asked to switch to the other house that is in our community partially on account that I spend my entire day both at work and at the house with one companion and that can go very unhealthy for me and my companion. It is a constant job I get her up and work in the workshops with her during the day and then put her to bed. I am basically on the clock with maybe an hour off a day. I just assumed this was how it was supposed to be but I understand where they are coming from as it is very hard to sometimes have the patience to deal during the day because we started the day arguing. In the new house I will not have any women companions to help, but will still have the opportunity to work with the male companions at the other house. There are a few other reasons that I will not go into as this is a public blog. Having to leave the house that I have called home for the past six months is very hard. The people in this house have very much changed me and made this year such an amazing fun experience. Yes I will of course see everyone everyday but it is not the same at all. I have had my rough patches as well don't get me wrong but when it all comes down to it, it is very hard for me to have to leave these people and this house. I am curious as to what the next seven months living in the other house will have to offer me and it will be very good for the community but having to have a conversation with a companion who asked when will I come back and have to say I won't, was heartbreaking. Then the companion I work with everyday all day to ask why I don't want to be her co-worker (this is not what they told her, she's amazing at twisting words). Its very hard to leave the house and people and not have them in daily life on the intimate level that comes from living with a group of people. But I am going to do my best to look at it as a learning experience and make the best of this new opportunity. But in more exciting and less dramatic news we've have some really nice celebrations with the changing of seasons. Two weeks ago was candlemas which is a really nice ceremony that basically helps warm up the earth after winter. So on the first of February which is the first day of spring here you go around your land and dig a hole and put a candle in it and burn it and sing, to help warm up the earth and get it ready for spring. This is a Camphill tradition and not Irish. Also this same weekend me and my dear friend companion went on a lovely outing as it was beautiful, which here is rare! We walked from town along the cliffs over looking the ocean to Dolphin (my future home) house. Saying that it rains for weeks on end with maybe one dry day it was rather wet but we managed and made it to the house in forty five minutes which for us is amazing since we are notorious for taking at least an hour to get anywhere, but it was a really nice day, Ann Marie and I spend a lot of time together and we are finally to the point that we are friends and its not a working relationship and this is huge and took six months to get there! Every friday is my day off and this past Friday was amazing weather the sun was shining and you could feel the warmth, it was fantastic after a very rough week. I climbed up part of the mountain out back and stared out over the ocean and sheep. Followed by a lovely walk into town where I got picked up by a local (This is completely normal here, they signal to see where you are going and if your headed to Dingle they stop and you get a free ride). Some of the best irish history I've learned is from my trips to Dingle with locals who've lived here there whole lives. Amazing. Anyway, I spent the day and evening in Dingle and got to see the most beautiful sunset ever over the harbor while reading a book. Followed by a great evening at a local restaurant that reminded me of American Flatbread from home. It's amazing to think I have hit the half way mark here in Ireland! We were asked in a recent review to think back to the beginning, when we first started and this was really hard because it feels like years ago. The first few months here were some of the happiest of my life because so many new things were happening to me and it is a time that I think back to with nothing but happiness and freedom. Since that time this job has done nothing but test me, in all good ways. I have been trained by countless jobs before me to look at a negative or hard work experience and turn it into a positive one and that is what I've been tested in most this year. I know I will come out all that much stronger and my life will be forever changed by these people and this beautiful place. I hope everyone has an amazing love day tomorrow and an amazing weekend! xoElsie

Snowy Dingle!

I have been quite crap recently at updating this, and for that I apologize! A lot has happened!! For one I had my birthday at the end of December, which was one of the most incredible birthday's I've ever had. It was themed party involving all the colors of the rainbow and each person had to dress in a solid color of the rainbow. My house and food for the party was also all rainbows. Parts of Europe have a tradition where the birthday person gets woken up by singing happy birthday with their cake and candles lit in bed. For many Americans this isn't something you would normally have on your birthday! This was a special treat for me and a very nice way to get woken up in the morning. The day that followed was called "keep Elsie out of the house." So I walked to the beach with a resident and enjoyed the sea and the sand before coming home to an amazing party filled with rainbow food and rainbow guests. We then went for the festivities that were in town which was a band in town that walks the streets of Dingle until midnight where we do that countdown in the center of town with the countdown projected on the side of the building. It was an amazing amount of people and great music and great company. Couldn't have asked for a better way to spend my birthday!!

Over the Christmas holiday's we had about two weeks off where we didn't do any work on the garden and really just did a lot of sleeping and did big outings. This was a lovely time to spend time together, eat amazing food, sing a lot, and just spend time relaxing. Of course all good things come to end. We went back to work on the 7th of January and since then it's been quite hectic has many people went on holiday and left the co-workers in charge, which was perfectly fine but all our tasks were ramped up a bit for about a week or so. Finally our lives are calming down now and are finally getting back to normal. This past weekend was jam packed, and full of fun little outings. On Sunday me and a few people went up this hill. In Ireland they call it a mountain.....its a hill. It was amazing at the top, so windy! You literally lean back into the air and you wouldn't fall. The hike of course was extremely muddy and we all nearly fell several times. We also had a resident who whenever he felt like it would just lie on the grass and in the case a full on bush, he would just lay down dividing the bush in half. We would then have to bribe him with chocolate or crisps (chips) to get up and keep walking to the top where he would then get his reward....horrible I know but it really works. It was at the top where all who went ont his hike really realized how blessed we are to live in such a beautiful place. It's amazing but sometimes you forget until you are in one of these situations where you are just floored at the sight that is before you and all you can do is just look.

the other very exciting thing that happened was today we woke up to SNOW! It's been two years since this part of Ireland had snow and it amazingly stuck for most of the day! We were able to have a pretty good snow ball fight during tea break and the weather was also just gorgeous. Sun shining and everything, which happens rarely here these days. It put everyone in a really nice mood and those who like me need snow in winter I was rather over excited for the change in weather. Not to mention Ireland became an entirely new kind of beautiful.

I do hope this finds everyone in dear old Vermont and New England well! I am constantly getting mocked for my "American English". They love the abbreviations for orange juice and peanut butter and have started making everything into just the two first letters, grape juice (gj) as an example. I have also become the human dictionary and grammar teacher for all of those who are still learning English. It's rather fun, of course next I have to try and learn one of the many languages I am surrounded by, so we shall see how that goes! In other news life is going alright, life sharing in such a small community can be very hard sometimes, you can't really avoid anything if you are having trouble with someone. This has been a lesson I have learned first hand and am still struggling with how to deal with it. It is something I am trying my best to learn from it and take in stride but this is a very hard lesson. But I am so thankful for the people that surround me and the beautiful country that I get to call home right now. So I will leave you with take the time to just enjoy where you live and remember to look for the beautiful things. Much love to all! xElsie

An Irish Christmas!

Hello to all my friends and family across the pond. So sorry for my horrible posting lately. After Thanksgiving Camphill life went into what felt like over drive, with new co-workers and getting ready for Christmas. Which here is quite big. It's been quite a whirlwind.

Starting in the beginning of December was the preparation for the Christmas play, its the basic nativity play you'd see in the states except its centered for kids and the emphasis is on the shepherds. I was given the hardest role which was in the beginning and I basically explained the play and bles everything in a good ten minute speech. A very fun part and at the beginning so then all I had to do was enjoy myself and watch my co-workers and residents rock it. We have had rehearsal daily for about the past three weeks and this weekend we finally got to see our hard work pay off in a performance this afternoon for friends and family of Camphill. We had a pretty full house and tons of children. The performance went really well, a small child did come onto the stage for a portion of the play which was pretty amazing, he was honestly looking at us with such curiosity. We've had quite a few of pretty great birthday celebrations. Birthdays are a huge deal here and all include parties. One was centered around the outdoors and we had a fire (equipped with hail) and hungarian goulash. Then another good one was for our head farmer so the cake was of our cow daisy. Also had a thrill when there were joke candles for the cake that you can't blow out. We also had the drumming teacher for our community bring all his drums over, so we did a drum circle of seven drums and various shakers. Pretty amazing sound.....small room for the amount of people but incredible to watch. My birthday is in a week or so and is going to be rainbow themed. I am very excited for this. New Years Eve is huge here and cast of thousands come to bring in the new year where a band plays in the middle of town and at midnight you all wander the streets. Very excited for this, however I'm forgetting Christmas and all it has to bring so I will get back to that. Christmas here is rather huge, there are many traditions, both within the irish culture as well as that of Camphill that are celebrated. Camphill had an a lovely Christmas party that included a three course meal, singing from around the world and irish dancing. Really special evening. Now.. the twenty fourth marks the start of several community meals, and the decorating of the tree. There is also the big mass in town and followed by that we all go up the farm and sing to the cows....not joking. Christmas day is also centered around the community where we sing around the tree, and open the presents we all have been working on in secret for one another for the past month. All presents had to be done by hand and kept a secret. Christmas day in Dingle also includes the Christmas swim where everyone who wants goes to the beach and runs into the ocean together. Followed by hot whiskey. I haven't decided if I am in fact going to do this. I am sorely tempted. The day after Christmas is a huge festival in Dingle known as Wren's Day. The history of the festival I'm not familiar with but everyone dresses up in straw and masks so no one knows who you are and goes around the pubs/shops and asks for money. Its basically yet another excuse for Irish people to plowed and this time they get to dress up in straw! I"m really curious to see this as I have been warned by locals to make sure I dress up or else I will be made fun of. After the twenty six life quiets down a bit which for many of us is what we can't wait for. We can actually relax, do fun outings and maybe feel like we are really on vacation. Which at this point in time we are as we do not have to go to work until the seventh of January.

This is my first Christmas away from snow, family, friends and Vermont. It's been a really weird feeling for me. Not having it A. be cold. B. then no snow, feels wrong. It really doesn't feel like Christmas to me. The tradition and people I am surrounded by make it special and it will be I think, some of the traditions I've never seen before so its really fun and interesting. But this is totally knew for me. But it is something knew and I am so lucky to get this experience at all so for that I am very thankful for. Yes this job is a constant surprise and living and working with the same people is at time very trying but the positives out way the negatives. No matter how much I feel like my world is collapsing in on me I am reminded of how amazing I have it by a hug and kiss from Catriona or we spend a meal just laughing. With that my friends I will leave you and hope you have an amazing and safe holiday season and will update with pictures of the festivities. xoElsie

Holiday Season Greetings!!

Happy Late Thanksgiving to everyone who is reading this! I hope everyone had an amazing day yesterday and ate themselves sick. I am so thankful for my family for getting me to do this program and so wish I could have spent the day with them yesterday! Thank you for your constant support, I couldn't have done this with out you! Life in Camphill is very busy at the moment. The holiday season brings a lot of festivals, birthdays and holidays. I was lucky enough to get to celebrate and teach everyone here about Thanksgiving. They were very enthusiastic about doing it "how the Americans do it". Had an amazing table of 19 people complete with the works and 5 pies. Amazing work done by so many willing people. Complete at the end with speaking about what we are thankful for and singing songs together. Really delightful evening! The other major events that are going on right now that is putting a bit of stress on everyone is the craft fair that Camphill Dingle does every year for fundraising. So all workshops are in full swing producing as much product as possible. Not to mention we are also setting it up like a Christmas market so there's a bake sale, and refreshments. So there's been quite a bit of baking going on, and in my house we have several really good bakers so it constantly smells like Christmas in my house. We also have a huge Christmas raffle going on which we are constantly shoving raffle tickets in peoples faces. The only other big thing coming up is the ever popular Christmas play that is quite big and involves everyone, so that will take up quite a bit of our time in the coming weeks. But it is very funny and will be a grand time. I was cast as the star singer that has to introduce everyone and bless everything with my assistant Stephen, which will be totally fun since we get to wear fun hats. But it's been years since I've done theatre so I'm really excited about it and think it will be a great time. I will leave you all with a story that happened today. I decided to conquer the huge mountain that is behind my house as it was beautiful out and I needed to clear my head. As I walked up the road the very annoying unappreciated puppy from the neighbors jumped on me and decided to come on my walk with me....I should mention that in Ireland there are dogs roaming everywhere, so this is not uncommon. This puppy is adorable but very hyper, so I thought a walk might do him some good. So we trudged on up the very muddy road to the fence to the sheep pasture. In Ireland it is also totally fine to trespass onto peoples pastures, so climbing over random fences is pretty standard for hikes in this area. We kept heading up, and I decided to take a break and enjoy the view which was breathtaking. Just as I was heading into the other pasture the sky turned dangerously dark, I should also mention that the clouds and light here are unlike anything I've ever seen and in the pictures you will see what I mean. Anyway, it starting raining on me as I was on the side of this mountain and then turned to full on hail stones. It was actually totally awesome to be caught up in it, but all I could hear was this poor sheep farm yelling at his dog, and felt bad for him to be also getting pelted by hail. I decided that was the end of my little adventure since I was now soaking wet. It was a really fun adventure. I am missing cold, it doesn't really get that cold here, so it's just a lot of rain! I'm going to try and be better at my posting!!!

A Day in the Life at Camphill Dingle.

Greetings family and friends. It's been a little while since my last post! The past few weeks have been jam packed with tons of work during the week and fun festival on the weekends. Two weekends ago was something called the Food and Wine Festival in Dingle. This means all the restaurants in town open up there store fronts and offer a special part of there menu, it could be a sample of fish and chips, or a burger, or in some cases kangaroo skewers. The town gets packed with tourists and locals wandering the small windy streets of Dingle. Thankfully it was a gorgeous weekend to be outside. Because our group of people is so all over the place we divided up and wandered around tasting food. I was lucky to get to try kangaroo which tasted like lamb but very tender. It was really good! The evening of this weekend was also the birthday of a resident whom wanted to go into town and listen to the live irish music that is every night at all the pubs in Dingle. He is also a fond dancer so him and a co-worker danced around the bar. Really amazing to be a witness to such a lovely moment.

I've been getting a lot of requests to describe my day to day life. The way of life in Camphill is really hard to explain but I'm going to try and write out a schedule of my day!! 7:30 Breakfast 8:30 Leave for the land (farm and garden) 8:45 morning gathering (sing, talk about the day, who goes where for lunch ect, general announcements.) 9:00 Start work in the garden 11:00 Tea break 11:45 back to work in the garden 12:30 head back to houses for lunch. 1:00 Lunch 2:00 clean up/tea break and a rest. 2:40 Head back to the land. 4:00 tea break 4:45 back to work. 5:40 Head back to houses for supper. 6:00 Supper 6:45 Clean up 7:00 relax until bed time routines (depends on who needs help with what) The only difference in the morning to my personal schedule is I am normally at the house cleaning or cooking lunch. Then I go to work in the afternoon on the land. Sometimes there are activities to do in the afternoon like swimming or a resident has signed up for a class in town that a co-worker must accompany them to, for example, zumba, spanish, drumming. Other evenings there might be a concert in town or a game on in the pub which is open to anyone who wants to go. Other evenings you might relax, knit or play games. The weekends are really relaxed, we get to sleep in until 9 when breakfast is and then you do whatever, it might be going into town with a resident or going on a group outing somewhere, or going on a hike. Then in the evening we have festive supper where we talk about the highlight of our week, sing, have group silent time, and enjoy a meal as a community. This is really lovely because everyone is together, there is often great conversation accompanied with tons of laughter. This past week we went on an outing to Waterville to see a performance by a local center that works with people with disabilities and did some sight seeing, which with our group of people is always enjoyable.

Yesterday was a lovely day! Spent it out west which is just stunning as it like Dingle is on the water and surrounded by cliffs. So we spent the day at the beach, hiking and ended with a tea break and an amazing cafe/pottery store filled with gorgeous huge vases and amazing tea pots and place settings (robin you would have been in heaven. I thought of you the whole time.)

I hope this helps to those of you out there who wanted to know how my work is going. Its really not work, it's just life. Living among people who work along side each other. Its a really intense way to get to know people but really amazing because you get to know each other really fast. Its important to remember to have time for yourself and not constantly be all together, all the time. But it's very much like a family feel and for me was very easy to fall into place with everyone. No day is ever the same here. I've been licked, flashed, kept awake by a man who couldn't figure out how to take is Ipod out of ears, and tried to stop a man from peeing in public....failed. I hope you all are enjoying the fall so far and I think of Vermont often here as fall doesn't really happen. Love to you all, take care. xElsie

Happy Michaelmus!

Happy Fall everyone back in the states. I am missing me some apple pressing and crisp days spend looking at the beautiful mountains change colors. But I really can't complain, as I spent the weekend harvesting every veggie/herb/fruit from the gardens on the lang in Camphill. This past week was the celebration of Saint Michaelmus, a christian saint who was known for defeating Satan and about celebrating the earth and all it has to give us. We at Camphill celebrated with a festival. We spent the day on Saturday harvesting, making grape juice (from our own grapes), filling cow horns with manure for fertilizing the garden, and planting bulbs. Thankfully the weather was amazing and it was quite a lovely day spent outside with the community relaxing, working and chatting.

The other big part of Michaelmus is we put on some form of performance for select community members who know about Camphill and what we do. This year we put on a circus. We included everyone and put together a forty five minute circus. We spent the entire week practicing, hours of figuring out what people were good at and then pulling it together to form a show. We did a lot of laughing and getting to know each other this week and it was a highlight for everyone. Friday was spent setting up and decorating the barn on the farm like a circus tent. The show went off with out a hitch and many of the people said it was best show yet of Camphill Dingle. It was great fun to hear so many children laughing at the skits and enjoying our circus. The weekend ended with a big soup made from all the veggies we harvested. Everyone enjoyed this delicious soup together. It was an amazing week. Today I get a day off, spent cleaning, buying my bro a bday present and in the evening having a movie and wine night with my co-workers and writing postcards!

I hope everyone at home is doing well. I miss you all!! xElsie