Category Archives: Ireland

Mar25

Sunshine, music, and kitties

Posted on March 25, 2012 by heretherebespiders

I have had a lovely, sunny, summery day today. And I did next to nothing. I enjoyed the sunshine; I ate the huge breakfast my hubby cooked; and eventually I did some of the dishes. I’d intended to paint my scavenged trellises a bit more – but only if the hubby could help me remember what odd place I’d left the paint tin. Instead we ended up with a huge crisis in which a tin of clear varnish was not only upside down and opened up and spilled everywhere, but did so inside The Closet Of Doom. Hence things like toolboxes, old paint tins, step stools, work gloves, ironing boards – and our Dyson – were coated liberally with acrylic varnish. Yay! After cleaning that enormous mess up, I no longer had any desire to paint, so I sat and read in the sun for several more hours.

The hardship, the horror. I know, I know.

I had to move out front as there was no more sunshine in the back garden. Now, I grew up in the American south, and it just isn’t done to sit out front of your house and drink a beer unless you qualify as po’ white trash (I am white, what other color trash could I be?), but I get sunshine so rarely that I just had to. My concession to being sort-of-in-public was to take a shower first. Good thing I did, because I just wouldn’t have been respectable enough to listen to my neighbour’s teenage son and his friend – who were conversing a few yards away in his driveway – fart loudly and giggle softly if my hair wasn’t clean.

Eventually, the sun gave up on me and I relocated to the back garden again where iDJ was preparing to have a BBQ and, of course, had the tunes a-goin. I stopped trying to read about serial killers and took pictures of Spot trying to open the sliding glass door with one pathetic kitty-arm:

You can’t blame him, really. Both of his people and his dog were outside (see Neko in the reflection?). And because iDJ has to have music allllll the time, the door was open a crack to allow for the speaker-wires. I understand, being a sun-worshiper myself. But I’ll stay in my yard, and he won’t, the bad boy.

Evening ended up with lovely sausages and burgers and me being dead tired but having to get up extra-early for some physiotherapy on my back. Somehow I think a few more hours in the sun would do me a better turn…

Mar24

The Reek from a distance

Posted on March 24, 2012 by heretherebespiders

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One day, a few weeks ago, I was on my way home from work and for the first time since I started The Job, it wasn’t raining. I looked over to my left and nearly swerved off the road.

I could see Croagh Patrick! It was backlit with the sunset and was just gorgeous, a perfect pyramid in the distance. I only had my iPhone, and it was a Thursday so I didn’t have time to try to stop and take pictures, or even go home and come back with our proper camera. I didn’t even know where I could pull off the road. So I bucketed on toward home regretfully.

Every day since on my way home I look for The Reek. Clouds, clouds, clouds… did I imagine seeing it? Surely that glorious moment couldn’t have been my imagination. But nothing, no sign of a mountain in the distance, and definitely not one of such perfect angular shape. I couldn’t find the spot where I’d seen him (I’ve decided a mountain named Patrick has to be a male), either – there was just no sign of it at all.

On Tuesday, I thought (for the first time, I can be a little slow) to look for Croagh Patrick on the way in to work. it wasn’t cloudy, shockingly enough, and lo!- I found him, at a point on the road much closer to Knock than I had originally thought.

Ah-ha, I thought, I’ve got you now!

All the rest of this week I’ve been slowing down and looking, hoping for another sunset behind Ireland’s Holy Mountain. No, I’m not religious, but it is what it is – the biggest, pointiest thing around and where Patrick is meant to have fasted for forty days in 441AD. Of course he picked the place because it is unique in appearance and had been considered special to the Irish long before Christianity existed – about 3,000 years before. Here’s the Wikipedia link if you want to learn more.

Anyhoo, this Thursday I got my chance, sort of. It wasn’t a perfect sunset by any means, and the sun no longer sets directly behind the mountain. But I whipped the Mini into the other lane and backed up into a cow-track, jumped out and took a few shots with my phone. *Edit – I forgot to say that a drive from Knock to the Reek is about 60km (37mi) – and as the crow flies it is probably about 50km (30mi) away.

Hipstamatic again, zoomed in. I had it on black and white still. The colour Hipstamatic shots I took aren’t worth posting.

Regular iPhone camera, but heavily mucked around with back at home. What I saw with my eyes just didn’t come through on ‘film.’ Very disappointing – but I’m still putting this up because I’m now taking the ‘real’ camera to work with me in hopes of catching what I really see.

Mar19

Paddy’s Photos continued

Posted on March 19, 2012 by heretherebespiders

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Okay, here’s a few shots that say it all about why I love our parade, and why nothing in Dublin or New York City can ever compare to the amount of joy I get out of what happens in my small town.

Zombie babies.

I’m not even into kids or cuteness, but these wee ones were hilarious.

Mini-Jedward. Okay, only my Irish and UK readers are going to even have a clue who these adorable boys are meant to be. But: awwwwwwww! Way more cute than the real thing.

I have no idea. But someone took the time to make a float with nothing but a toilet on it and drive it down the main street behind a tractor.

…?

…!!!!!
I know this man pretty well, and the question every year is what dress will he wear in the parade? He’s well over 6ft, and a well-respected businessman… who is acting out Rhianna being told to not be such a hussy while shooting a video in an Irish farmer’s field last year. I’ve never seen a man in a woman’s bikini smile so much! This was the highlight of the parade for me, and his shenanigans usually are the funniest part every year. I didn’t spill my drink, but nearly wet my pants laughing.

Samba band! For Minlit 🙂

Seeing close friends in the parade is great fun, too! Nurse Bella didn’t really enjoy the noise and activity, but it seems ‘flooding’ worked for her and she’s less of a scaredey-dog than she used to be.

I’ll leave you with not the one, but two pictures stolen from hubby. I realised there was a third shot of his that I really loved. First, another action shot.

We think this was meant to be about some celebrity fat-fighting, boot-camp style reality show. No matter – I love the energy these young lads still have after running and jumping and dragging bloody great tires up at least a mile of the town before they got to iDJ and his camera. I also love that iDJ had the guts to stand right there and let them leap around him!

I’ll finish where I began – with the pipers. Another iDJ shot, and wow! Again he was right out in the road in the way, but our man never blinked an eye. He must know he looks that dammed impressive!

Mar19

Paddy’s photos

Posted on March 19, 2012 by heretherebespiders

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Right! Hubby uploaded 118 pictures today to Facebook from his iPhone and our ‘real’ camera, which now has issues of keeping battery contact and dies constantly and is super annoying.

I forgot I even had a camera until the parade was at least half over. So, these are my pics, except for the two I’ll give him credit for – I only really loved two of his 118 enough to steal them, and I think you’ll see why. My pics are mostly rubbish, but I think they give an idea of what it felt like to be in my town on Saturday afternoon.

First – this is from the night before. The pipe band went all around the town playing in each pub (a shorter journey with fewer stops than it was even six years ago, alas). We were at one end of the town – in a pub, of course – and when the band moved on they lined up smartly in the street, be dammed to traffic coming either way, and marched right down the entire town. I don’t know if any photo can convey how surreal and exciting this was for me. ‘Scotland the Brave’ at full volume at ten o o’clock at night is…amazing. From the other gawkers, I wasn’t alone in appreciating their miniature solitary parade.

Parade day! What’s a parade in the whest of Ireland without a big, feic-off-tractor or three? This was the first one, and the reason I remembered I had a camera in my possession. Can you tell we’re standing outside of the same pub as the night before? Oh yeah.

Bet you didn’t expect a helicopter, though! I think – but I’m not sure – that this is the one I’ve been up in. If you’re afraid of flying, or of being on a motorcycle, don’t go up in a wee two-seater whirlybird like this one. I adored my all-too-brief time in (this?) one.

Classic car 1.

Classic car 2.

Classic car 3.

Classic car 4 – and I’m back to black and white as this just was meant to be in B&W.

Now we’ll have a compare and contrast. This is my best shot of The Rocky Horror Picture Show cast tribute.

This is the one iDJ took. Damn him!!!

I think I should break here and do another post for the rest…

Mar17

Two artsy-fartsy photos

Posted on March 17, 2012 by heretherebespiders

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Early on in the pub, iDJ and I were playing around with our phones and the Hipstamatic app. I took this one of him using his phone:

He complained about it at first, because of the blur. According to him, my pics are always blurry. But I pointed out its only his pint that is blurry, his face is clear. It implies movement, even if he was being quite still.

This one is of one of the drummers from the Oldham Pipe Band that is in town for the parade (in just a few hours, yay!). I took a lot of shots but only this one caught his hands.

A shame, really, that this is the only one that turned out. The app is bleedin’ slow! I was snapping away and only got about 5 pics. Lucky I guess to get one good one at all.

Oh, and he’ll give out to me for publishing this with the stupid ‘MAR 82’ date stamp on it! I can’t be arsed to remove it.

Currently I’m out back, freezing, listening to what he calls skiddleyidle music. Irish traditional, or just Trad. He’s got the Weber grill out and we’ll be having burgers and sausages from our amazing local butcher. I’m cold, but I didn’t have the shakes and shivers until he poured me a pint of O’Hara’s Stout, 6%, to follow up my ‘morning’ coffee. Yes, it’s just gone 1 and I’m on the beer…

Mar17

Earworm OTD

Posted on March 17, 2012 by heretherebespiders

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Ah, quite the easy one today! I popped a CD of The Clancy Brothers with Tommy Makem into the car yesterday. Easy And Slow isn’t a song that is about much, but it has such a lovely wistful sound that I could listen to it for hours in a loop. My dad had The Clancy Bros on vinyl, so they are a huge part of my childhood. Irish folk can tease me all they like – a good trad tune makes me feel good in ways nothing else can.

“And what’s it to any man whether or no
Whether I’m easy or whether I’m true
As I lifted her petticoat easy and slow
And I tied up me sleeve for to buckle her shoe”

Mar15

Here it comes…

Posted on March 15, 2012 by heretherebespiders

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It’s late evening Thursday, but I’m already psyched-up for Paddy’s on Saturday! I’ve just heard 2.5 hours of all-Irish music from my hubby’s Internet radio show (he went over by half n hour because he just didn’t feel like stopping, and he was hoarse from singing along by the end). He’s happy and excited, I’m happy and excited – and best of all, it’s not even my bedtime yet and the show is done, the dinner is et, and I get to have a reasonable amount of sleep on an Oirish Tirsday for a change.

Change is the reason – the time change! The US has done it, but we haven’t yet (nor do I know when we do – why care when it will hit like a ton of bricks and I cannae do a thing about it, anyway). So, his show started and should have ended a whole hour earlier than usual. A bit of panicked rushing round on his part, but man, I wish it were like this every week.

Anyway, Paddy’s… I just love the day here in my small town. I love seeing all my friends and neighbours being silly in costume in the parade, and seeing the creativity of every ‘float’ from local businesses. I love the poor, shivering children in costumes they cannot see out of, and the professionals such as the stilt-walkers or the Samba band or especially, the pipe band from Scotland that always comes. Pipes and drums set my blood on fire.

I love (and also usually really, really don’t want to, at first) standing out front of the pub at 3pm with a frosty pint of Guinness in hand waiting for the parade to come past. I love having so many other friends and neighbours standing with us, giggling, suffering. I love that the parade is so long, and the town is so small, that about 3/4 of the way through it ends up doubling back on itself and we see the same marchers twice.

I love afterward, when the parade is over and I have a good buzz going on and the marchers straggle into the pub with their costumes half removed and any makeup smeared, so I can tell them how much fun it was to see them and how great they were.

I love that this year, I can share some of the hundreds of photos we take with you.

I love my town, and I love St Patrick’s Day here. I never want to be anywhere else.

Mar10

WTF is this?

Posted on March 10, 2012 by heretherebespiders

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I took these shots through my driver’s side window while rocketing down the road to home at 100kph. I’m pretty impressed with the camera on this iPhone, as I had no chance to hold the phone steady or even really look at what I was taking pics of – too dangerous on this narrow, twisty, bumpy road.

I thought that this was just a very odd cloud formation, but then thought that perhaps there was a fire?

My dad thought it might be a ‘footcloud’ – a precursor to a tornado! We just don’t get them around here, though. And it is so close…

A friend who is a pilot said if it wasn’t smoke, it was a ‘massive CB buildup – twister territory!’

The sun was setting on the other side of the car, my left. Cloudy over there, with no sunbeams coming over to light this up. You can see that it’s pretty dark. The part coming up from the ground looks a bit yellowish, too – but it’s done nothing but rain for months so it wasn’t a bog fire. It did rain pretty hard about an hour or so later, but the winds were normal for this time of year.

Any ideas?

Mar4

Rubbish photos

Posted on March 4, 2012 by heretherebespiders

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I had a day full of reading and sunshine – in between clouds and one hail-shower. Eventually we decided we’d go out to the pub for the second half of the rugby – it was a draw, yawn – but I had a good time taking pics out in the schmokin’ area. When no one else was looking, of course. Inebriated sports fans would never understand why I’d want to take pictures of this:

I’ve a few in colour but…somehow these are the best.

Feb21

Pancake Tuesday… with a twist

Posted on February 21, 2012 by heretherebespiders

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Today is Pancake Tuesday! Are YOU having pancakes for dinner? We are!

I’m not sure how many countries actually have a Pancake Tuesday. I’m sure the ‘real’ Fat Tuesday is similar… but in Ireland, they call it Pancake Tuesday. Without Googling the official reason, here’s my version of the reason why, as filtered through what my hubby told me nearly seven years ago:

It’s a Catholic thing. Because you were meant to give up yummy things for Lent, you used up all the eggs and flour and sugar the night before Ash Wednesday, so it wasn’t in your house to tempt you. What better way to use these ingredients than by making a passel of pancakes?

So, I’m not a Catholic and wasn’t raised that way. Hubby isn’t a Catholic either, but he was raised that way, and has had a lifetime of traditionally having pancakes for dinner one particular Tuesday a year. (He was just telling me the day is yet another pagan festival day that has been usurped.) Hence, we make pancakes (or, he does, because I don’t have the patience) – but we don’t do it for any other reason than tradition and it’s a bit of fun – and, of course, because they are soooo tasty.

The problem is… we are on a low-to-no carb diet. What to do? Well, there are tons of versions of low-carb ‘cakes out there. He’s been doing it long enough that now he has his own version. I’m not privy to the details, but I know it involves eggs, vanilla, possibly whey powder, and ricotta cheese. And they are fantastic, especially with my home-grown blueberries from the year before all throughout. You’d never know they were low carb. I’m smelling them cooking now, and they even smell like ‘normal’ pancakes.

As an American, I can’t get into just sprinkling sugar (or Splenda) on top of my pancakes. I might cheat on the diet and use some of my precious Mrs Butterworth’s syrup on mine. Just a little, though.

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