Summer Solstice

6/22 Today we discovered that the nuns at Neil's parish, St. Aiden's, are Irish! So we're all getting along smashingly, Neil gave Sr. Breda a CD and now we're kissing cousins!

6/ 23 We'll be in Wales sometime next week...there's an ashram that Neil and David will go to and we'll be hanging out...somewhere near the village where The Prisoner was
filmed. Remember Patrick McGoohan...I am not a number....

So weird to see the sun up at 10 PM, eh?

We hiked into Elderslie to the Wallace Monument, then across the rail tracks to the graveyard where Neil ran into a cousin Anna (her mother, his auntie Kathy just died)...Anna and Neil hadn't seen each other in decades!!

Then we went to Paisley and after circling the abbey we explored the town...I kept insisting that I wanted to get to the top of the hill...fabulous buildings! and all the streets were named Oak something...don't tell me it wasn't a druidic site!...we could see Ben Lomond, the Campsies, etc.

It was crystal clear...but the best part was when I pet a dog and the woman who owned it took a shine to us and let us into the secret garden that she's restored, behind the Thomas Coates memorial church...a very secret garden...many alleys and closes...and it's not on the tourist path. The observatory is up there too...looking back, it's
a rounded hill leveled at the top...if there were archaeological ruins, they're long buried under massive stone edifices.

Anyway, bits and snatches of the past emerge despite progress..