Down on Uncle Frank's Farm in County Mayo....

Memories! I think we are all capable of wearing rose tinted glasses when thinking about times gone by Jim but it's so nice to reminisce.

simpler ... unprocessed food .... Thinking about what is important. II wouldn't advocate poverty, but perhaps deeper thinking.

We're all guilty [if that's the way one wants to lookat it]of this, looking back with rose coloured glasses, but I totally agree with Margaret and Gudrun, especially about deeper thinking. Your lovely painting brings back so many memories for me, too. Thank you, Jim, for sharing it today.

Yes, we polish up our memories until they shine like gems. We had coal fires when I was a kid, our sole source of heat, I remember the pleasure of sitting near the fire listening to the radio. A wonderful cosy memory...quite forgetting that while my knees were lightly roasting, my back was shivering. There's a fantasy element in nostalgia...as there is in your painting. But I wouldn't have it any other way.

Thanks for the comments folks. The one really good memory of this is that it's all perfectly true. Things were so laid back then, that we once had an unplucked chicken sent as a Christmas present from uncle Frank and Aunt Nora in Ireland, via the post in a cardboad box. I won't mention the ripeness when it arrived, or what the post must have cost. The thought was precious, the bird unfortunately, not quite so. It got cooked as Christmas dinner anyway and my dad declared it fine. Such is Ireland, a truly wonderful place..(-: