Sunshine and Celebration ~ Gatherings from Ireland # 229

This marks the 400th post here on Social Bridge and I’m delighted to be able to celebrate with both accepting and passing on The Sunshine Award. I was thrilled to be honoured with the Award by Roberta McDonnell.

RULE 1: Link back to your nominator. 

Well, I have the greatest pleasure in linking to Roberta Mc Donnell’s  brilliant blog http://subliminalspaces.wordpress.com/.

It seems so right to be nominated by someone called Roberta because my absolute favourite book as a child was one in which the heroine was called Roberta, and Bobbyfor short. I spent endless hours mouthing the name Roberta and wishing that I could have that name so that I could be like the one and only girl called Bobby that I’ve ever come across.

Rule 2: Display the Sunshine Award image as you see below:

Rule 3: List Ten Random Things about Yourself

I love Roberta’s approach to this ‘not so easy’ task which was to let her mind wander to the links to sunshine that came to her.  So here are mine:

1.  I love swimming in the sea at both sunrise and sunset. There is an added dimsension of a golden path across across the water that lends warmth, inspiration and hope, no matter what the time of year.

Tramore Bay, Co. Waterford at Sunrise

2.  I would go as far as to say that poetry is a form of  ‘sunshine’ to me. I started a poetry thread on Linkedin almost two years ago now and it is a place where I always find sunshine among my fellow poetry lovers. Here’s a piece I wrote about it after the first 9 months. https://socialbridge.wordpress.com/2012/06/24/celebration-of-profound-poetry/

3. There are lots of songs about the sun, but Seasons in the Sun, sung by Terry Jacks, is the one that wraps itself around my heart:

4. My favourite lines of poetry that relate to the sun come from W.B. Yeats’ The Song of Wandering Aengus:

Though I am old with wandering

Through hollow lands and hilly lands,

I will find out where she has gone,

And kiss her lips and take her hands;

And walk among long dappled grass,

And pluck till time and times are done

The silver apples of the moon,

The golden apples of the sun.

5. As a Medical Sociologist, I feel that there are many rays of sunlight about health issues in ‘blogland’ and these will be reflected in some of my nominations for the Sunshine Award.

6. Yellow is the colour that I most associate with sunshine and, for me, primroses are the epitome of that colour of hope, Springtime and my late mother who had such a passion for these beautiful flowers.

Primroses

7.  The place where I think sunshine is most evident  is in smiling eyes.

8. A long standing joke in our family related to an evening my parents were out for a walk, when my sister was two. Father said to Mother:  A little sun won’t cost us anything,’ as he crossed to the sunny side of the street. My beloved brother was born about a year later!

9. My own little ray of sunshine is now 18 but I still love this photo, taken when he was about two.

Harry

10. Sunshine is all about inspiration, colour and creativity. I really have no excuses, having been given this handmade ‘sunflower’  pen by a dear friend.

Sunflower Pen

My nominees for the Sunshine Award are as follows ~ they are blogs which impress me greatly and which are from across a wide spectrum in terms of geography and subject matter. I truly hope that you enjoy them as much as I do.

http://thereisnocavalry.wordpress.com/

http://sunnyspellsandscatteredshowers.blogspot.ie/

http://whilethereisstilltime.blogspot.ie/

http://ireland-ms.com/

http://thefieryredheadblog.com/

http://exploring-life.ca/

http://thesilvervoice.wordpress.com/

http://littleblogoflettinggo.com/

http://backontherock.com/

http://quiltswithpersonality.wordpress.com/