Jeff went to mass at 10:15 and was back well before 11:00--my kind of mass. After eggs and rashers, which is Irish bacon, kind of like fried ham and not so good as regular bacon, our first stop was the 
Shrubbery Park, where we recreated a photo from Summer's babyhood, that I might be able to scan and add to this post later, if I can get my head above water at work. Goodness that was a long sentence.
We ate lunch at Supermac's, a kind of Irish McDonald's. Not fast, and not cheap, but tasty.
Then we paid our first visit to Padraig (pronounced "Poor-ick," it's Irish for Patrick), Jeff's great uncle, now 90 years old and living in a nursing home. Back in 1995 he was living with his sister Catherine outside the village and keeping cows and sheep up at Curraduff; he rode a scooter to feed and water the animals. In 2003 he was living by himself with Catherine in a nursing home; she died shortly after our visit.
Today Padraig was asleep in the tv room. We woke him up and spent several minutes reminding him who we were and then we had a nice chat. 
The nursing home staff seemed excellent. His only complaints are that his childhood nemesis Tommy Sullivan lives down the hall and, for someone who spent every second of daylight out of doors for nearly 90 years, he feels cooped up and a little confused. We think it's great that he's right in Oughterard so Kevin and Betty and anyone else can just pop in and visit him any time.
Last we visited Brigit's Garden, a new tourist attraction near the pitch where we saw Conrad play football. There are four landscaped gardens, one for each season and Celtic festival, and a children's nature trail, including a "whispering chamber." This is a hill with a room hollowed out of it. Jeff and the kids ducked into the room and I climbed the side of the hill and whispered into a slot lined with rocks: "This is Mother Nature calling, can you hear me? I hold secrets of mystery." "We can hear you!" Summer shouted back.
We spent a quiet evening at home with a fire built with compressed peat briquettes we bought at the convenience store. We wondered where we could get our hands on some real turf.
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