Hunting For My Birthday Present

As many of you know for my 30th birthday present my husband sent me on a treasure hunt. It started with a birthday card and an article he had "found" in the local newspaper. In this article it said Dr. Ferguson had found an ancient stone tablet which she believed to be in a Masonic Cipher.

This is the Masonic Cipher or also called Pigpen cipher.

Once I decoded the message it said, "Only the enlightened find the rings up high." This puzzle took me about 40 minutes to figure out. At first I thought it was in the roof space, but was told I was off the trail. Finally it dawned on me that the ring fort by Granny's house was up high, so that had to be it. Plus if you take the first letter of each word, excluding the word "up", you make an anagram spelling THE FORT.
I headed straight up to the fort after dinner and found my first piece of the puzzle. It was a large round piece of wood split into 4 sections. Each section had a riddle that led you to the back of the circle where there were 4 ciphers to decode. I won't go into too much detail as I imagine many of you aren't into ciphers and codes as much as we are, but lets just say it was mentally taxing and very hard. He didn't give me any hints.

This is me with the first piece of the puzzle trying to decode the ciphers and the riddles

The four ciphers were a Ceasar cipher shift seven, a book cipher, a date cipher and a Durer's magic square cipher (this one was even harder since it started out in Masonic and than once I did that I had to figure out how to do the Durer's cipher.)  If you want to know more about any of these ciphers you can go to wikipedia or type them on Google and you'll find pages for them. Once I figured out the 4 ciphers, they were again riddles that I had to solve to get my next piece of the puzzle. One was "ONE, TWO, THREE, FOUR, SPLASH." This led me to a piece in our fish pond and no I didn't have to go into the water, but it was at the edge. Another was, "IMINYOURATIC". Yes there is only one T, but to make it fit into the magic square he had to spell it wrong. That one was easy enough. Another was, "Sleeping Like A Bat" with GPS coordinates to a tree in middle of the field. The last one was hinting to the bell by the ring fort.

After I had all four pieces along with the circle I could find the treasure. Now to add, each piece that attached to the circle had different symbols on them. One was distance, another was degrees (N,W,S,E) another was length (ft, mm, cm, etc.) and the last one was all these weird symbols with a sun and on the back it said "Don't be blinded by the light". This is the part that is the hardest to explain, but I had to align the lines on the front of my circle puzzle piece to what I thought would lead me to my treasure. Behind the original piece R had drawn a ring on the tree that was the same as on the front of my circle. I aligned it the first time to the sun and it lead me to 50 cm North of the tree. Well I was wrong, so I had to go back to the circle and the key. Now the key said "Don't be blinded by the light" hinting to a song that my husband knows drives me crazy.  But when I looked up the song on the internet and found the chords, they matched one of the symbols on my pieces. I aligned my circle to it and it pointed to 20 ft West of the ring. And guess what, I found it, buried in a rabbit hole.  The pictures will show the rest of the story. To give you a clue as to how hard these puzzles were, I started this hunt on Sunday afternoon and didn't find my treasure until Wednesday afternoon.

This is me climbing a tree and a fence to get to my clue that is "sleeping like a bat."

The puzzle piece

This is the whole puzzle put together. As you can see there are marks in the circle that can align  to the different  markings on the side. 

O helping me dig my treasure. I didn't really need the shovel, but it looked good in the pictures. I had thought that it was buried much deeper than it was. The only bad part about where he hid it was there were still rabbits around so the plastic bag had a funny smell.

This is what I found under the plastic bag.

The treasure chest. It looks much bigger than it is in person. I would say it's as big as my hand. It was all hand-made by the husband.

This is what it looked like when I opened it. There were two lockets and about  £30  of shiny coins.

The lockets. He says they're antique!

It was the best birthday present a nerdy girl could have, but to be completely honest I don't know if I could do it again. My husband definitely couldn't do it again since it had taken him weeks to get all the codes and the riddles put together. As well as building the box.  I hope you all enjoyed my adventure and if you want to try some of the ciphers let me know and I'll send you the puzzles.

Hope you all had a great weekend!

oíche mhaith

My Thirtieth Birthday!!

If the finale to your 30th is a treasure hunt what more could you ask for. The whole weekend was perfect.

It started Friday with a drive into Belfast and checking into the Hilton on the Waterfront (thank you Daddy). The room was on the top floor over looking City Centre. After check-in we took a walk around town and did some window shopping. R and I had forgotten what it was like to have lunch and walk around without a baby. O was at home with the grandparents and I think she thought she was on holiday. We got to enjoy drinks in the lounge and continued on at a friend's house.. Domino's Pizza was involved.

Saturday morning was a lovely breakfast and a lazy day at the hairdressers. I was book at C's cousin D's hair salon to get my hair done as a birthday present from my brother-in-law. D was only the second person to touch my hair in 15 years. (I've had the same hair dresser since I was 14 and I miss her horribly, but couldn't afford to fly her over). D was great and did an amazing job. I spent most of the day there since she was running late. I did get to watch her do 3 people's hair for a wedding and what she can do is amazing! I would love to have my hair done by her all the time. Anyway, after that it was back to the hotel to get ready for the party.

We had dinner at Zen, a Japanese restaurant. It was great to have some sushi since R and I were so used to either getting sushi from Hannaford or heading to one of five sushi places in Portland.  We had 12 friends, it was perfect. I want to thank all of you for coming. The menu was as traditional as we were used to, since I was told many people over here wouldn't be as adventurous. The host was wonderful and made me a lovely sake cocktail. Dinner was good and after everyone had ordered desserts they piped in the birthday song and the whole restaurant sang happy birthday to me. I have to admit it was very embarrassing, but at the same time made me feel very special. The only I would say against the food was it was a little pricey for what you got. I hadn't known the prices until a few days before we went. I will have to find a cheaper place to get good sushi.

After dinner we walked over to Cafe Vaudeville. The place is a gorgeous space. It was originally a bank and then transformed into a restaurant/club. I'd been told it was a great place for dancing and hanging out. It was a good place for hanging out since they had plenty of seats, but they didn't really have a dance floor as big as I thought. We had a few more friends meet us at the club along with my brother-in-law and his friends. Saturday was technically his birthday so we all celebrated. I probably won't go there again since it felt like it was just pretty people standing around drinking, but it was a great time. R and I walked back to the hotel and enjoyed just hanging out the two of us.


In the morning it was another lovely breakfast and then back to Tobermore and the baby. We had our normal Sunday dinner and my father-in-law got me a cake. During our dinner the ice-maker was on the fritz and I was able to fix it. It was nice to do save the fridge from the bin. Sunday was a perfect end to a perfect weekend. Thank you all for the birthday wishes and presents, it means a lot to me, especially in transitional period for our family.

As many of you know from facebook, R gave me a treasure hunt for my birthday. In my next blog I'll tell you all about it and give you some cool facts about ciphers.

oíche mhaith

Back to Blogging

It's been a while since I've shared what's been going on here in Northern Ireland. The reason for the absence was the lack of the computer and also the lack of activity in my social calender. But these last few weeks have been busy. The hardest part right now would be to figure out where to start. Hubby finally got my computer to work again and upgraded the software.

The last thing that I told everyone was just how the weather was awful. Well that hasn't changed at all, it's been cool and rainy. We've had one or two days really nice since, but I would say it's not really summer weather at all. We have made friends with some of the neighbors which has been great for O.  The house closest to us has 3 boys, ages 4, 6, and 8. They adore her as much as she worships them. It's been good for her to have someone to play with beside Mommy and  Daddy. I also love to hang out with their mom so it's been a benefit to both O and I.

Everyone here is also getting ready for one of my husband's cousins wedding. We all got our invitations and are getting outfits. R and I are having to work out who's going to babysit, because their are no children invited to this wedding and all our babysitters are off to the wedding. It will be nice to go to a wedding and not have to chase O around, but socialize like a normal adult.  I also went to a hen party last weekend and that was great fun, more about that in another blog.

The big thing I'm waiting for is my birthday weekend! Hubby and I are checking into a hotel in Belfast (thanks Daddy) tomorrow and then it's dinner and dancing Saturday. The only shame is that there is so much going on Saturday that not as many people could come. I'm trying not to have a "it's my party I can cry if I want to" moment, but I only get one day a year when it's all about me and I'm turning 30 so I thought that was a pretty big birthday. Am I just selfish or would any of you feel that way? I guess it's times like these that it really hits home just how much I miss my friends in Maine.

Anyways, no more pity party business. Yesterday we went into Belfast to see one of R's old school friends M and his wife E with their two daughters M & M. He's been in the service for the past 10 years at least. They've now setting in England and came over to visit his mother in Belfast. It was a great day. We went to Indiana Land which is like a very very big McDonald's play place. O had a great time with the girls and we got to catch up after not seeing each other in at least 5 year or more. There was also bowling at this location, so we tried a round. It was a little too much for O, but M's girls had a good time until their bellies took over and they needed food. It was off to the little chip shop there as well. Overall it was an excellent day.

 I wish I could describe better, but it's early in the morning and very tired. We've been dealing with a sore bum and teeth at night with O so the nights have been very short.

I hope you all have been well. Haven't talked to many of you in a few months. I promise my future blogs will be not as random and full of pictures.  Have a good rest of the week.

oíche mhaith

Wishing for some Maine weather.

Well we finally got some sun yesterday and today. It's not hot like Maine, but when it's 101 plus humidity, I'm ok with that. Maybe August will be better for us here. In face the last two days have been great, so things are looking up.

It was a quiet week with the in-laws still off for vacation. We didn't go anywhere or do anything not much to tell. I did do a girls night out on Saturday night and that was fun. It would have been better if we could have found a decent place to dance, but everywhere was dead due to a music festival going on in a nearby town. The most excitement  we saw were about 5 bar fights. Reminded me of the Old Port on a bad night.

Anyways, I'm just going to post some pictures of our adventures in Cork and some of last week of O.

This is a store chain that sells the traditional Irish sweaters. This one looked like no one had been in it in years and smelled like smoke. 

Local pub.

The main bridge leading to inside the Ballingeary.

O getting ready for her boat ride.

The Cork cousins and family.

The first large house built in the area. It was built for the parish priest.

O just being a ham.

This was us last week going to pick raspberries on the lane.

Mommy's little helper.

I'm sure you can guess that we didn't bring many home. Word to the wise: Don't let your baby eat too many raspberries or your in for one dirty nappy.

oíche mhaith

The week of the 12th

It's been a holiday week over here in Northern Ireland. The 12th of July is a big holiday over here. Not so much for celebration, but just that everyone has the 12th off and a few people will get the day after. It is also my father-in-laws mother's, Great Granny F, birthday, so we had a big BBQ with the FIL side of the family.

What is so special about the 12th you ask? I like to think of it as the Protestant "St. Patrick's Day." It's actually the Protestant celebration of the Battle of the Boyne. The Protestant William of Orange and his troops beat Catholic James II and his supporters. If you want more information about the holiday, wikipedia has a short synopsis on it. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Twelfth They also call it parade season because the Protestant side of NI has a few other events they like to remind people about. This time of year used to be the most violent time because the parade marchers would deliberately march through heavily Catholic areas just to rub it in, like a big middle finger to the losers of the battle.  Bonfires are also a huge deal. They're made of old pallets and get up to 3 stories high. Those represent the old signal fires that used to be in the heavily Protestant areas. Granny F likes to leave the city at this time of year for that very reason, since there is a huge one right behind her house. Every year the districts of the Orange Order choose a town to have their big do for the 12th, next year it's here. I'm hoping to be in America next year to miss all the hoopla. It's usually a really long parade of bands and Order members and then speeches all day. The local band did come back to Tobermore around 5 and we got to see the end of the parade. O seemed to like it.

Such fierce pride in their history is something that is still foreign to me. They remind me of Confederate men not willing to admit that they lost the war. I haven't even seen many Americans with such burning passion for their Protestant history. I have my personal opinions on this, but I'm going to keep them to myself.  Now not all the Protestant's celebrate this holiday, in fact it was very quiet this year except for a smaller riot in West Belfast. Overall it's just a day off. I'm sure I'm not making sense, but I have a few pictures from my phone of the bonfire in Tobermore and the flute band.

Headed to Belfast tonight for a party and some Harry Potter tomorrow! Have a great week all.

A roaring bonfire.

The Tobermore flute band

oíche mhaith

Cork: Day 2

Yesterday was our final day in Cork before the long drive home. I have to say, that coming home felt much shorter than going there, but maybe that's because I slept from Newry to Belfast.

Sunday morning we all got up and went to Mass in Ballingeary. The church was small and had a medieval feel. However the service was in Gaelic and I had to try and keep Olivia quiet the whole time so it really didn't feel like a church service, but it was fun and different.

After mass we had a BBQ and then the whole family went on a boat cruise around the lake. The captain of the boat was a neighbor to the family down there. He had built most of the boat himself with the help of local tradesmen in the area. Ballingeary is near a bunch of tourist stops so he's hoping he can get then to stop at his boat. In fact there was a huge bus full of tourist that drove through town just as mass left out and I had to laugh to myself thinking they were taking pictures of me, an American.... Ok, not that funny, but kind of ironic, don't you think?

The boat ride was about half an hour and Jerry, the captain, gave us some insight on the local history. After the boat ride, R and I did a short kayak trip on the edge of the lake. The water was nice, but very weedy and the air was too cold to even attempt a swim. Some distance cousins of my MIL came over and we ended up taking until about midnight. Then it was up early this morning and straight onto the road. No stops this time and a lot less traffic. It's nice to be back "home." It was a great time in Cork. I wish we could have had one more day, I had wanted to try the local pub and also a nice sunny day would have been nice. It never rained, but it wasn't warm enough to go swimming in the lake or suntan. Maybe next time.

Tomorrow starts the festivities of the 12th. I'll be giving you all a history lesson about that this week. There will be parades and bonfires, maybe even some fireworks, who knows. We already missed the family BBQ in the local park, but I'm sure we'll still find something to do. I hope you all had a great weekend.

Boarding the boat

Looking out on the lake from the dock. The house we were staying in is just around the corner at the far right of the picture.



Can we say "booze cruise?"



More lake. This shot is looking away from the house toward the mouth of the Paudeen river that we swam in yesterday.  

oíche mhaith

Cork: Day 1

Greetings from county Cork!

We arrived at my husband's aunts house in Ballygeary or as it is written on the signs, Béal Átha'n Ghaorthaidh. It's about an hour west of Cork in an area they call, geeltach. It means that it's a predominately Gaelic speaking community. In fact R's cousins go to a school where they only speak Irish and there is an Irish college in the town that people from all over come to learn Gaelic. Makes the town a little hard to find if you don't know how to read Gaelic.

Anyways, the car journey was about 6 hours, but travel time was about 9. We stopped in Belfast for a shop stop and then got through Dublin and had lunch at Brown's Bar. It was an old stable converted into a restaurant/bar. Very cool. Than it was straight to Cork from there. Being in a backseat with a grumpy infant and no room makes for a very long journey. The house here is over looking a lovely lake. (I'll have more pictures when we get back to Tobermore more of course).

Today was a lovely day. R and I took a 12 mile bike ride around the whole lake. Through Ballygeary and then to the next village of Inchigeela. Both villages were so quiet and peaceful today. They roads were also pretty empty so we had a nice leisurely bike ride. The roads were the kind of roads you picture when you think of back country Ireland. No cars, no lines, no signs, just cows, sheep and fields. With a few cottages for good measure. However, because I hadn't been on a bike since who knows when, my bum is very sore and there were a few hills I walked up, but overall a very easy ride.  Miss O went with the grandparents for a 2 hour walk around the mountains.

After the bike ride, there was a nap and than I went with the 3 cousins and Uncle L up to the river Paudeen. It's a small river just past their house. To get to the swimming spot, you go under two electric fences and through a cow pasture. It's the perfect swimming hole. A nice current to keep the water clear and deep enough that you can actually swim. However, when we were getting the ready, the "locals" as I'll call the cousin were all dressing up in wetsuits, that doesn't sit well when all you've got is a small swimsuit.  I am proud to say though that I did dive in and it wasn't too bad, if only the air was warmer it would have been perfect. I'm proud to say that I'm made of stronger stuff. (The water was a hair bit warmer than the Maine ocean water).

Tomorrow we're probably going on a boat ride around the lake, more swimming and a BBQ. I might also go to mass tomorrow if the service is going to be Gaelic. Very interested to hear the difference.  Here's a few pictures taken from my phone of the swimming hole. 

Looking up the river. On the left

Looking down the river towards the bridge

The locals looking for small fish.

oíche mhaith