Hey there everybody, and happy new year to you all! I hope you had a lovely Christmas/Beastmas/holiday season, and that you’re all ready to tackle 2020… We certainly are here at Beastie Towers!
So, it’s been a while – what have we been up to since we last sat down for a chat together? Well, the headline is MARKETS!
In 2019, I took a big leap and had a go at organising my own craft fair! I rounded up a group of my favourite local craftspeople, and met some awesome new makers as well.
It was A LOT of work, but I really enjoyed the challenge. Heck, I’d even consider doing it again in 2020!
I also had a few other market dates in the calendar as usual – the Beasties and I always love to get out and meet our public. Here we are at the Dublin Cat Fair!
And of course, there were a few commissions in the mix, just to keep me on my toes! I can’t wait to introduce you to all these new additions to the Beastie family over the next couple of weeks!
But before the Christmas madness set in, let’s not forget that Explorer Beastie and I skipped town for a couple of days to visit friends in London! He’s looking forward to sharing his holiday snaps with you all.
Finally, with everything else that was going on in the last few months of 2019, creating a 2020 Beastie calendar didn’t quite make it onto my to-do list. That said, I depend on mine so much that I ended up rejigging the dates from last year’s so that I could reuse it! I was just going to keep it all to myself… But I’ve decided to add it the Beastie Store as a free download if any of you want to grab a copy. Click here to go directly to the listing!
Well, hopefully that’s whetted your appetites for a fresh year of monster mayhem! Now I’m looking forward to catching up with all of your news… Be sure to say hi in the comments so that I remember to swing by your blog!
We’ll be back next week with more from June Beastie, who made a surprise visit to Paddy and Plunkett at Beastie Towers a couple of months ago. If you missed it, you can pick up the thread of the story here and here.
If you’re not entirely sure who this is, you can find out in 
“… Belongs to a guy who’s travelling to Washington DC tomorrow!”
“Not quite there…”
“Sorry! Is that any better?”
And after a slightly inelegant scramble…
“Eeek! My rolling pin has got stuck!”
Paddy and Plunkett were just getting ready to tuck into a human-sized portion of their very favourite meal – honey mustard chicken.
“Hang on… When were you in Albania? Did you go without me?!”
“Sure thing… Shame to let it get cold, though. I’ll just have a bit. YUM!”
Meanwhile, at the door…
“And she’d like our guidan… WHERE’S MY LUNCH?!”
“Oh, you must be the intrepid Paddy Beastie! I’ve read all about you – what a pleasure to meet you at last!”
…But there’s still plenty left for curious Beasties to explore! Let’s join them as they’re taking a breather in the peaceful environs of the arboretum. What great, deep conversations are they having on that elegant stone bench, I wonder?
“Reminds me a bit of the scenes on Endor from Return of the Jedi, this place.”
Or how about a round of hide and seek? There must be millions of good hiding places in here!
“Found you, Paddy! Now it’s my turn to hide.”
“…I’ll be able to see everything!”
It originally graced the entrance of Bamberg Cathedral in Germany, and is 240 years old! It also recently had a facelift, and even the attendant eagles on the pillars got a shiny new coat of gold paint.
“Come on, Plunkett! Nearly there!”
“This had better be worth it… Oh, look at those statues!”
“And what’s that up on the hill?”
And, at journey’s end, they find themselves in a very peculiar place.
It’s the old family pet cemetery! Much less scary than the one in the Stephen King story, this one has memorials to faithful hounds and, if you look at the older headstone on the right, less conventional “pets” like cows get a look-in too.
“Greetings from Powerscourt House, everyone!”
Powerscourt House is in County Wicklow, and it’s only about half an hour south of Dublin. You wouldn’t think it, would you? The house is set in spectacular and varied gardens, and has made Lonely Planet’s list of the 
So, while Plunkett has been enjoying the spectacle of the house, Triton Lake and the Italian Gardens, all set against the backdrop of the Sugar Loaf Mountain, where has Paddy gone? I thought he’d at least be trying to persuade one of those winged horses to take off and give him an aerial view of the grounds… Oh wait, there he is.
… And wait by the stone lantern for Plunkett to catch up!
The Japanese Garden was created in 1908 by the 8th Viscount and Viscountess Powerscourt, making it one of the newer features of the grounds. But funnily enough, the boys stumbled on one of the oldest parts just around the corner – the grotto!
“Paddy, look at all this wonderful moss!”
“Paddy! It’s a Beastie-sized waterfall! I could stay and watch it all day…”
“Hey, what’s that weird-looking building in among the rocks?”
Sold! As we know, 
Let’s go inside!
Aha! Nice one, Plunkett… You’ve found the fish pond!
What did he want a pool for? Well, in the dark days before the fridge-freezer, a “fish larder” like this one meant that the family could keep sea fish handy and fresh all year round!
“Smugglers! It has to be smugglers!”
In here, fish are raised from teeny fry to adult size… Then they can move to the main pool.
Wow, they’re friendly! They must love the camera… Or could it be that they know when John the guide is coming around with his bucket of fish food?
Is it the perfect Beastie-sized house? Not quite.
Luckily, the days of segregated sea bathing here are long gone, and Paddy can enjoy a view of the shallow pool without outraging anyone’s delicate sensibilities. He almost looks like he’d like to go for a dip himself!
Look! There’s even a fireplace inside, so getting dried off afterwards wouldn’t be a problem!
Plunkett likes it too, despite his initial reservations.
“Maybe we should stay here for the winter. I reckon they’d like a pair of resident Beasties!”
It seems the locals are pleasant, too. We all know about how well 
Then, on the horizon… Look, a lighthouse!
“Look, Paddy! It’s open!”
But alas, Paddy will have to stick to admiring the lighthouse from ground level. The Beasties’ small stature has 
Paddy is planning to take it a step further. He’s pretty sure everyone wants to hear his rendition of “Ode to Joy” blasted out over the sea at 120 decibels.
How could any adventurous Beastie resist a signpost like this one? So many possibilities!
Looks nice and peaceful, doesn’t it? But just as Plunkett is unwrapping his sandwiches in preparation for a nice quiet lunch in the countryside…
Looks like the boys might have stumbled upon the home of Velocity 2 – the fastest zipline in the world!
Plunkett is happy to pose with the sign, even though he is secretly dreaming of getting back to his picnic. But Paddy is hungry for adventure… And his curiosity leads him deeper into the building.
Later, Paddy rejoins Plunkett at the bottom of the quarry. Plunkett has had a lovely afternoon of munching cheese and pickle sandwiches and watching the humans hurtling down the zipline. And he’s very interested to get a Paddy’s-eye view!
Well, that’s all the proof I need. Well done, Paddy! Although I really don’t know how your next adventure will ever compete with this one…
That’s right, it wouldn’t be a Paddy and Plunkett day out if they weren’t wreaking havoc on a train somewhere… And this time it’s the Welsh Highland Heritage Railway that’s getting the Beastie treatment. Luckily for them, the railway has a monster of its own to keep these two under control – the legendary Welsh Red Dragon!
Nope, definitely not.
Fortunately, Plunkett has got some sense into his woolly head – juuuuuust in time, by the looks of things!
I tried to ID Paddy and Plunkett’s train, but I didn’t get too far… Are there any locals out there who can help?
“This Gelert must have been a pretty important person!” says Paddy.
Hanging out with all those owlets certainly put a smile back on Paddy’s woolly face.
“Plunkett! PLUNKETT! Can you see the keys for these anywhere? I think I’d like to take one of them for a spin!”
But Paddy and Plunkett were in a bit of a pickle when we left them 
Fortunately, I was getting all alarmed over nothing… Turns out that this rather large octopus is a big fan of the boys, and couldn’t wait to snatch them up for a hug and a photo!
Anything else lurking in the shadows? The 
He’s wandered into the Seahorse Nursery, another of the Sea Zoo’s ongoing conservation projects.
Pollution of the world’s oceans with plastic is already having a serious impact on marine life… And unless we fix this plastic problem, all of the fantastic creatures Paddy and Plunkett met here could vanish from the seas forever! They don’t want to see this any more than I do, so they asked me to wrap up this post by sharing a few little things we can all do to bin the plastic… For good.