What a funny balance to the day. I went out to check two standing stones, but didn't reach the first one (it's in an army artillery firing range). At the second I made quite a discovery.

On my way to these I stopped at a few 'old favourites' to get GPS readings and check them out. Sadly the bullaun I discovered ( Brittas II (County Wicklow)) has disappeared below the turf again, which means my photos are the only ones of it and could remain so.

That was the lost one, but as I said I also found one - a stone circle no less! I really didn't think that there'd be any unrecorded stone circles left in the Wicklows, but I came across one today. Makes you wonder how many more are out there waiting to be (re)found.

For some odd reason I didn't feel like going out at the weekend. I had planned quite a long journey, but decided that early December wasn't really the time to make it. However, I think I will be making this trip in the Xmas break.

So that I didn't have yet another week this year where I didn't go anywhere I decided to take a little walk during my lunchbreak today to see a little thought of stone that is just 15 minutes from where I work. I did actually stop off at this stone a couple of weeks ago, but had neither my camera nor GPS on me, so I didn't post a visit for it.

This morning I decided to head out to try and witness the sunrise at Glassamucky Mountain (County Dublin) ... again! The weather looked very clear (unlike yesterday) so I set off. The tops of the Dublin/Wicklow Mountains were smothered in a blanket of snow when I arrived giving the place a lovely magical feel, but making driving on the narrow mountain roads a very scary experience.

The good news is that I saw the sunrise at last and had my theories partially confirmed.

Waking up to a find a white carpet covering the ground outside wass great for my kids. It was also great for me too: I love visiting stones in the snow! Sadly, I rarely get the chance. So, while the oven was warming up, I went for an hour out to see where I could visit. The choice around the south of Dublin is quite vast, but there's one place I have wanted see in the snow for a very long time - Glendruid (County Dublin).

I stopped of at one other on the way and walked along the back path to Glendruid full of excitement. As I was doing so a heavy flurry of snow started to fall. Excellent! Standing in the little valley, all alone, on a quiet day with just the tomb and the huge flakes of snow to keep me company was a fantastic Yule present. Thank you Mother Nature!

It being the last day of this modern calendar year I thought I tie a few things together. I set off very early to get to Shanballyedmond (County Tipperary) bright and early only to be welcomed by a very fine rain. Luckily this cleared up throughout the morning and by the time I reached the sites that were new to me it had cleared up.

As well as revisiting a few sites I was determined to get to some that I had previously not managed, either through bad weather or because I couldn't locate them or anyone to tell me exactly where they were. One group of sites was a real treat because I found much more that the two tombs I was expecting to see and a second site also turned out to be much more than the OS map promised.

I have also decided to change standard size I use for images on the site pages. I will be posting slightly larger pictures from now on. Unfortunately, this will upset the look of the pages for those people that use 800x600 as a display resolution.