Easter Traditions.

Hot Cross buns have long been associated with Easter and adopted by the Christian religion many century's ago but they date back far further than Christianity. Easter is named after a Pagan goddess Eostre, the goddess of light, gifts of small buns were offered to her, each one had a cross marked on it symbolising the four quarters of the moon. However, does it really matter how or from when they originated?

Hot and steaming.

They are delicious and very easy to make, eaten warm with lashings of butter, yum!!
The last week has flown by, we had friends from Spain staying for a few days, far too few, they are great company and very interesting people, the house seems very empty without them. They are both teachers of English in Spain and are now on their last term before doing the summer schools and then heading for South America for nine months, it might be over a year before we see them again which is a shame as they are such good company. We will look forward to the next instalment of their adventurous life, and will look forward to their next visit.

While they were with us we managed a trip to the Mayo coast, we had hoped to show them the Ceide Fields near Ballycastle, but unfortunately by the time we had stopped off for a cup of coffee and a picnic on the coast we were too late for them to see the Ceide fields.

Beautiful colours in the rock face.

This is the oldest known field system in the world, dating back 5.5 thousand years, under the peat bog they have discovered field walls, house and tombs. A truly wonderful Neolithic land scape.

                                      The nearby  cliffs are truly spectacular,

It's a long way down.

                  and high, not for me I'm afraid, I will enjoy them from the road side.
The garden keeps on giving, so much rhubarb and now purple sprouting broccoli,  curly kale, we still have plenty of carrots and parsnip also celery. The very early potatoes are growing well, these are in bags, Ratte, kindly donated by a friend. the earlies in the garden are  now through, but no sign of the Sarpo yet, this was our own seed saved from last year, and we still have plenty in store, hopefully they will last until the  earlies are ready. It will be touch and go on the onions though but we might last out until the new crop is ready. The tomato plants are looking good and are now needing to be planted in their  summer space, we hope for a good crop. Meanwhile seeds keep growing, and that includes the weeds, always something to be done when you grow your own.