I know it seems strange for an old southern state quail like me to have a blog named Peerie Flooers.  But I am a bit strange.  When Kate Davies posted her GORGEOUS pattern, Peerie Flooers, I was taken with the phrase as much as the design.  I went looking online for more Scottish Gaelic.   What I found was the lullaby and it grabbed my heart hard.  Speaking psychologically, it addresses my darkest.  As, I suppose, all really good lullabies and fairy tales will.  Moreover, my eleven year old daughter loves it too.

Sometimes when she is in a good mood you can hear her singing, awa upstairs, alone to herself.  "Hush-a-baa-baa, my peerie flooer..." Her voice is so fresh, light, and dear it breaks stouter hearts than mine. The men in our lives love the song, sure. My husband laughed in his good natured way the first time I played it for him, as I brushed off a couple of tears. Though he lacks a need to hear it over and over and over again, as does our son. But me and the girl find comfort in repetition and perhaps we hear in the song Grandmothers long past?

If you spend a lot of time replaying the song while staring at the Scottish and English translations, it becomes a nice unit study of not only Gaelic, but also how to learn a language. So that works nicely for our school this year.

And then there is this.  We are Gaelic, the O'Groomes from county Cork (Contae Chorcaí) Ireland. Groometown is still a thriving community, full of our ancestors working right down the road.  And my children also come by it honestly from both sides of their heritage.  I'll have to look up my husband's old family name and from exactly whence they come.   Grandpa Tom knows.  He's working on Irish citizenship these days. Here's to the hinterlands, the ancestors, a wooly woven thread of time and love, and small flowers every day.