Category Archives: Ireland

Jun13

Strollin’ through the town today

Posted on June 13, 2013 by heretherebespiders

Yesterday morn I took the dogeen for a walk, and I saw a lot of things that made me think about where I live as seen through a stranger’s eyes. It was a positive experience – but as walking the dog isn’t conducive to taking photos, I didn’t break out the iPhone.

So this morning, I took a walk without her – but I didn’t get to see all the same things as my walk was shorter. Sorry!

One of the very first places I come to is the church. They are painting it. Yesterday was what they could reach with a long roller, but today the heavy machinery was involved.

After the church I hit the main drag. The sun was playing peek-a-boo.

It looks so colourful like this. It’s a terrible shame that at least 1/3 of the buildings you see are empty. Some for the entire 8 years I’ve lived here, and longer.

An example – a business that has come and gone again since I’ve lived here. They sold ink. The pile of unread post inside the door is astounding, and that terrible white-wash window covering didn’t last even a few months.

Another empty business – but this one (unoccupied since well before I moved here) used to be rotting and quite the eyesore. This year they cleaned it up and put up fake window stickers to make it look like it is operational. Fair play to the for that (click and zoom in to see the fake rows of goods).

We still have a phone booth! There used to be three, but a couple of years ago they took the other two out. I have no idea what it costs for a local call – I’m afraid that it smells of urine in there. Probably not, but some things you are better off not knowing.

Another shot of Main Street, heading back home now. You could almost see the church again in the far distance on the left. Almost!

Someone’s well cool door knocker. I’m also looking for things to paint – so this one is hopefully a goer.

The former bell at the church – hubby is quite happy to tell how he “helped” get it down, back in the day. It’s all programmed bong bong bongs now, which we can hear from our house quite easily. I want to try to paint this, too.

Of course, I had a very, very, disappointed dog waiting for me when I got home. Funny now she looks like an orang-utan, isn’t it? And hey! There’s me taking the pic!

Jun11

Anticipation

Posted on June 11, 2013 by heretherebespiders

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Greetings and salutations.

My beloved sunshine is taking a holiday this week, so I’m stuck inside again. I don’t care for it, nosiree. All I can see inside is all the crap that needs done – dust and junk everywhere, paperwork needing filed, dishes to wash, blah blah blah. I do a bit when I can face it. It’s pretty overwhelming.

I fixed the sliding glass door as it kept sticking, but it is sticking again. I fixed hubby’s sneakers but they haven’t been tested for durability yet. Um. I’m sure I’ve done more but my powers of concentration are pretty weak. Someone gave me Kryptonite apparently. Or it could be the depression, or the happy pills trying desperately to work. We will see. I’ve been let off work until June 29. Wow. I didn’t think I was that bad. Doc thinks I am. And while I can’t get fired, I am only getting €84 a week for being out sick. That means I’m worth about €2.10 an hour, or about $2.80. With no tips on the horizon. Pretty much I’m running the household into the negative just by being alive. Ah, I’m all cheered up now.

So! My theme today is anticipation. Me getting better is something I’m still unable to see myself. So I’ll have to go with my garden and all the exciting things about to happen out there, in the slow, green, growing world. Good thing – that’s about the most excitement I can handle right now. I got the shakes just from a dentist appointment – and I’m a very good, non-terrified dental patient.

Anticipation of these babies from last year, whatever they are. iDJ’s uncle knows but I’ve forgotten.

Sorry, I forgot these first pics were taken on our new superduper camera, a Nikon D3100. I can barely use it, so these pics are probably friggin’ enormous.

Smaller, I hope. They all are the same size on my iPad! My blueberries are all a bloom and attract so many bees. Bumblebees, but I’ll take what I can get.

New raspberry plants are just starting to bloom.

…and we just had a small nuke go off in the house, because I broke my only, and 99.8% full, bottle of rum. It went everywhere, as liquid and broken glass are wont to do. Sigh. Won’t be anticipating another rum and Pepsi, I guess. Back to plants. Something’s got to cheer me up. How about a rosebud?

Or a teeny-tiny baby carrot?

My daisy-like weed about to bloom, backed by the mystery plant which now has red blooms to go with the cream and bright yellow?

The orange lilies are getting so close – they are in a big pot and live outside all year around.

The black lilies and whatever else I put in here are growing like mad – up to mid-thigh on me now! We are back to iPhone pics now, as I was getting frustrated with the fancy-pants camera (it was set to shoot raw, by the way. So accidentally I took really sophisticated pics of not-blooming plants).

My California poppies – I swear two days ago there were no flower stalks. Now they are nearly ready to go!

My last photo is not anticipatory. My iris have, boom bam wow, bloomed overnight. And I’ve never seen them so tall!

Jun5

Sun has cooked my brain

Posted on June 5, 2013 by heretherebespiders

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Randomness will abound. Forewarned is forearmed!

I have a hammock now.

Actually, I’ve had it for nigh on 10 years. Now I have a stand to hang it from. And even that took 3.5 hours of fiddling, giving up, and having some fabulous local welder a make me a longer centre pole so the massive hammock would fit.

My arse still hits the ground when I sit up, but it’s lovely. I’m desperate to sleep in it overnight. Maybe tonight?

I’ve been off work, because my brain finally had a big crash and now I’m on happy pills. About time I admitted I needed help. Coincidentally, the weather has been amazing and just what I needed. I’m actually peeling from a sunburn – I don’t think that’s happened to me since I moved here. I got so hot today I had to go inside to cool off with a damp towel. Woot!

I also went swimming today, but I didn’t bring my iPhone as it was scary enough leaving the car keys on shore while I snorkelled about. It was cold! But I had a good time. Here’s the view from where I parked.

Well, that’s a crappy photo. But I didn’t want to take a pic of the two little boys in their underwear (knickers, they kept saying – thought only girls wore knickers?). Don’t you just love that warning sign?

I’m out front – and getting chewed up by midges so I don’t know how long I will last. I was out here last week (before the midges hatched), and the sunset was pretty interesting.

I washed the car yesterday so I bet the reflections tonight would be clearer if the sunset was cooperating.

I still don’t know what this is. Help?

It apparently comes in more than one colour.

Okay my face is on fire from bug bites and I’ve retreated indoors. Little noseeum bastards. Like I’m not itchy enough on a normal day? Perhaps sleeping outside isn’t such a good idea. A bird pooped on my hammock today, anyway.

A bird with better aim pooped somewhere else this afternoon.

That’s my iced tea, in the cup holder of my favourite camp chair. I was sitting and reading and suddenly – splash! tea all over my right bicep. I look in my cup, expecting a chunk of moss from the roof. No. It’s a perfectly aimed bird shit. Right in my cup. Thanks, avian friend. The tea was all warm and nasty from the sun, anyway.

Now, some say that having a bird crap on you is good luck (why o why). Immediately after this happened, I checked the lottery ticket my mother in law bought for me last week, and I’d won €12. But it was purchased May 31 and I only thought to look at it because someone said bird poo was good luck. Ooooo, spooky, eh? Hehehehe.

May31

Growing not a whole lot

Posted on May 31, 2013 by heretherebespiders

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Crap. Not much is going green for me out of the load of seeds I started. I have one tomato plant, one mystery gourd, five sunflowers, and a load of cornflowers. My cosmos did next to nothing – think I have five plants total, all white (yawn), and only about half of my corn grew – and it is tiny, weak and probably dying as I type. Sigh. It’s just been cold, windy, rainy, and grey.

But. Hubby bought me these back in March, and I finally got them all planted out. I love that they all look like alien spacecraft from Babylon 5.

Kinda late for some, but I got the gorgeous black lilies in right away and they are coming up nicely.

That thing behind them is a weed – a weed, I tell you – that I planted on purpose. It has daisy-like flowers and hubby likes those. So there. Right out on my front step, a huge-ass weed in a pot. Heheh.

More from the March collection – obviously not lilies but I forget what I put where. I was in a hurry. Do you see the Siamese in the background? My sister painted that for our mother decades ago, he’s concrete. Starting to look a bit rough around the edges, but still makes visitors think there’s a kitty on the stoop.

Here’s another of hubby’s March presents – raspberries! I waited too late to plant them out, so it looks like only two of the SIX he accidentally bought me are going to live. He didn’t realise there were three canes in each package! So I guess two is all he expected anyway.

I planted these last year and I forget what they are. Take two years to bloom apparently, and they are ready to go now! I have a lot of them.

Anyone know what this is? We skip-dived (dumpster-dove, for my US friends) this huge slightly cracked planter around Christmas, and it seems the plants in it came back. Blooming shortly, whatever it is.

Hostas are better this year: I put down slug pellets as soon as they started to come up from their long sleep. Last year I forgot and had to look at holey leaves all year.

My lilac! I’m so thrilled with this green baby. I collected the seed from a bush that lives out front of a mostly-abandoned garage. Started them last year, got three to grow. One didn’t make it to fall, one I thought had died but it started to come back, then died again – but this one is happy. Yay me! Grown from seed on a whim, in seriously wet soil inside a plastic take-out container. I couldn’t even tell for sure that I had collected any seeds, so all three were a gift, even if they didn’t live long. The odd grass is native, dug up from the coast and brought home because I like it. And two of my red sunflowers – how tiny they are, supposed to get several meters tall possibly. Possibly a bad place to plant them? Meh. Also a glimpse of both lavender and rosemary.

We need some colour, all this green and no bloom is getting boring. I moved some of my tulips last year as they aren’t happy where I planted them.

That’s it – just the two. But that’s two more than I got from the ones I didn’t move. Oh, and both of these are in crappy recycled materials pots – one in a container that previously contained salt (from my uncles’ bakery, we stole them out of the recycle bin) and one in a former plastic Celebrations chocolate box. I rarely buy a pot anymore, why bother?

The Stupid Girl planter from last year. Radishes, carrots, rocket, my few straggly pathetic corn stalks. I planted the last five kernels in the packet today, figured what the hell might as well try. It’s been warm, finally.

The broad beans are coming up – if you can see them behind the extraordinarily happy oregano plant.

One, one! of my rudbeckia survived the winter. It’s also in one of the former salt-containers. It seems to be happy there! I only have four seedlings this year. It won’t be as orange a garden in 2013, unless the galliardia do well – I think they might.

My ending picture is a very, very welcome surprise. My beloved lavender rose bush. I truly thought it was dead, dead, dead. It was down to the ground a brown twig with no life or leaves (we have black spot bad). Early on I bought Rose Clear and have been spraying my poor roses every two weeks, and doing a just-in-case spray of the dead twig. Looks like it was worth it! Gave it a good bone meal feed and trimmed all that grass back so it gets some sunshine. I have hope again!

Apr10

Green fingers and thumbs and toes, oh my

Posted on April 10, 2013 by heretherebespiders

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I managed to do some planting over the weekend! It was lovely and sunny on Saturday, and I got out my box o’ seeds and decided what I wanted to grow. I had a look back, and I’m two weeks ahead of when I planted things last March, yay!

In one of my big raised beds (the ones I made last year), I put radish, two kinds of carrot, and some rocket. There’s two of last year’s late-planted carrots and a sad excuse for purple sprouting broccoli that have survived the winter in that box, so I left them alone. The carrot packet in the photo is dated ‘for planting year 2001’. They’ll still grow, I promise!

For veg, I have a dearth of good things, it seems. I gave up on cauliflower (blecch, anyway) and regular broccoli a few years ago. They are related to cabbages, and probably because cabbage is so common, this country has every insect and disease known to horticulture ready and waiting to attack members of the brassica family. I never knew cauliflower could turn bright yellow and go slimy. Hubby never ate the heads I managed to save, anyway. And it stinks like the inside of a cow’s intestine. I’m not a fan, can you tell?

I always grow basil and it always looks great and then turns black. Sigh. Got some red cherry tomatoes, some kind of supposedly edible gourd, bell peppers, courgette (zucchini) and broad beans. I really want to try to grow corn but I have low-to-no hopes for it surviving here. I don’t have any seed, either.

I have three definite colours of iDJ’s favourite, the cornflower – red white and blue! Also a mix, in the hopes that I get some pink ones.

His other favourite, cosmos, is also in three colours, white, white with a pink edge, and a mixed selection that also has funky double petals. I didn’t grow the pink/white ‘candy stripe’ last year, and I missed it, so it’s back.

His last year’s favourite, rudbeckia, did not survive the winter here (despite the advert on the packet, hmm) so I’ve got it on the go again, too. You would not believe how TINY rudbeckia seeds are! I’m going to surprise him, hopefully, with a new bloom, gaillardia. The aquilegia (what I call columbine) and the coleus are for me, taking me back to a good flower garden I had in Ohio.

I’ve also got two kinds of red sunflowers for him, with no clue where I’m meant to put them in my garden. According to the packet as they grow 6 to 9 feet (1.8 to 2.7m) tall, yikes! I have some violas and dianthus (a different variety of dianthus than what I’ve had growing out front for years). I think I tried to grow both last year with no germination. Oh well, the seeds are free!

I put out a lot of garlic that had gone well past its use-by date, as in it was mostly dried up or had a long green shoot coming out of each clove (or both). I find it grows amazingly well here. Easy and no maintenance to speak of. Shove it in dirt, water when dry, dig up when the greenery dies back. In a few months, one sorry-ass clove becomes a good sized garlic bulb. It tastes wonderful fresh.

My back didn’t appreciate the work, and our weather is meant to be very cold and windy but dry until the end of the month. Nevertheless, I’ve got everyone snug inside their propagators, and we move them from sunny morning windowsill to sunny evening windowsill daily. I dreamt last night that they had already begun to sprout – so I had a look when I got home tonight to see if I was right.

I was! The early birds are the gaillardia, all of the cosmos except the white, the mixed cornflower, and the ‘velvet queen’ sunflower. I’m so excited!

Apr8

Aborted rant

Posted on April 8, 2013 by heretherebespiders

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Well. I’ve gone quiet for a bit. I have things to post, oh yes. I can’t seem to make myself want to interact much. I’m a bit sad about missing the responses, you see. I post late at night, Irish time, and all the comments come in when I’m asleep – I love responding in ‘real time.’ Even if I set this doowhazizz to post at a later time, I’d be at work when my friends visit. All blogs are blocked at work, too. I can use the WP app to respond but I really like seeing a comment in situ when I reply – okay, that’s a bit odd perhaps. It’s a visual thing. I also enjoy sitting here, writing my heart out, and hitting ‘publish.’ I’d miss that just a bit too much.

Today, Margaret Thatcher finally died. I didn’t know much about her when I was living in the USA – I do recall the Falklands War, but I wasn’t interested in the politics of it. I never heard about the coal miners, or her support of apartheid, or how she let Irish men starve to death in prison rather than concede that the UK and Ireland were at war. Now that I’m married to an Irishman I’ve heard about these things, and I’ve heard again every time her face was on telly: will she just hurry up and die already?!? So, iDJ is happy, if you can say that. You know what? I can say that, and I just did. He’s glad she’s dead, and I’m happy he’s glad. I expect there will be a Thatcher-themed radio show this Thursday. So there. They should put her in a locked, gated mausoleum to keep away all the people who want to dance (or worse) on her grave. That said, a total stranger just called it ‘utterly pathetic’ that I said we’d opened some sparkling wine tonight for the occasion. Now I’m just a little bit pissed off.

Actually, a bit more than pissed off. If I say something stupid, I expect to be informed of it in a reasonable manner. Not called utterly pathetic. That is the type of interaction I never get here, and thank you all so very much for being reasonable people, or at least ignoring me when I’m irritating.

I couldn’t spell mausoleum to save my life, by the way. I don’t trust that it’s right even now, despite Google saying it is. That’s for you, Tom!

What else… Ah. My life feels like it is on hold. The relief I felt two weeks ago is dissipating and now I’m coming up with new things to worry about.

Ugh, now I’ve gone and made myself even crankier than usual. I’ve lost interest in my own bitching, so here’s a beautiful photo of Lokii.

Zoom in. Yes, do. He’s drooling just because he has sunshine. Now, doesn’t that make it all better?

Mar30

Road photos

Posted on March 30, 2013 by heretherebespiders

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I’m kind of in limbo at the moment, mentally – getting there I hope? I’ve said enough lately to last me a while, so I thought instead of moaning, I would put up some more photos from our excursion of a few weeks ago. These are all Hipstamatic shots taken on my iPhone – not the new iPhone, the one before that, don’t ask me what it is – I just inherit the old phone when iDJ is done with it.

This is a dark group of shots, befitting my dark mind-set at the time. I still like them.

As I’ve done before, I love to take pictures of the landscape as we blast through it. We were local this time, but I think I got some good ones (out of the hundred-plus I took that day).

The sun was going down, and it was doing some fascinating things with the clouds – making ‘Jesus Rays’ in all directions. Yeah, I know – I’m not a Christian and probably shouldn’t be using that phrase. But I love it, it is perfect after seeing all those ‘artistic renderings’ that have Jesus surrounded by crazy beams of sunshine. I think I got the expression from Stephen King, but I’m not 100% sure – I read a lotta stuff.

Trees kept getting in between me and the Jesus Rays. I love how the motion of the car makes the trees look radically bent, leaning, in motion even, when it is me moving instead. Oddly, the Hipstamatic shots seem to be reversed – the angle should be to the left due to the camera’s forward motion, and it is to the left when using the straight iPhone camera.

Ahh. There’s the sky finally!

But spectacular sunsets always end…

and you have to head for home.

Mar27

Dog’s Day Out

Posted on March 27, 2013 by heretherebespiders

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And now, for something completely different. I promised A Silver Voice a dog-related post.

Hubby and I took the dogeen on a rare car trip a few weeks ago. I took a load of pictures, and have saved a huge number for posting when the elusive round tuit appears in my pocket.

These are the ones of Neko – there’s only a few.

Her in the car – she looks goofy with her ears flat like that, but it’s because she’s a big dog in a small car and she refuses to lie down in the car! Yeah, it’s blurry. You try taking shots over your shoulder of a standing dog in a moving vehicle that’s bouncing down Irish roads.

Even goofier. Actually, to me she looks like she’s about to barf down the back of my neck. She doesn’t get carsick. Anymore.
Not since she got that halo.

Her in a thingie, in a place.

Her in a thingie in a place, looking at ‘daddy’ and wondering why she has to stand there and be good and can’t go running off to some other place with thingies she hasn’t smelled yet.

Mar14

Irish Music Celebration!

Posted on March 14, 2013 by heretherebespiders

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Hubby’s got another good show tonight! On in just a couple minutes as we haven’t done our time change yet and all is a panic!

Again, go to Radio23 channel A to tune in, or I’ll be posting the podcast link later on! Thank you.

Edit: the podcast is here.

Feb21

Birthday Begging, on iDJ’s behalf

Posted on February 21, 2013 by heretherebespiders

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Hi there all you lovely people!

I rarely do this. But tomorrow is my dearest’s 40th, and tonight is his last Internet radio show as a 30-something! Please come and listen? High listener rates will thrill him to bits, and who wouldn’t want to be thrilled to bits?

If you’re on Facebook you can follow his show “Soul Shenanigans“. That’s good fun as he makes a new poster every week! Look at this week’s:

That’s him, cute and blonde even then.

Otherwise, visit here: Radio23.org or errorfm.com.

He’ll be on Channel A, in just about an hour. He’s interactive, too, so you can send him a happy birthday message or tell him he’s an old, out-of-touch fart and to get off your digital airwaves, if you like.

I’m hoping for the former!

EDIT: show is over but available via podcast!

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