A spiderweb, in the smoking area of my favourite pub. Obviously there’s no shelter from the rain for man nor beast…
Shot with my Hipstamatic for iPhone
Lens: Susie
Flash: Cherry Shine
Film: AO DLX
Feb12
Category Archives: Ireland
Feb11
Small fame with big rewards
I forgot I had this photo. I was updating my iPhone because there is a new, free, Hipstamatic lens. While doing so, I looked at some of my Hip pics. While this isn’t a good example of what the app can do, it’s the only pic I have of this:
This picture was taken inside my favourite local pub. What a great advertisement for Guinness! Look how happy the model is! Look at that perfect pint! And, of course, the Guinness logo on the glass is turned perfectly to face the camera.
What’s so special about this poster? Well, it’s been up in the pub since early August. It’s a not-very-good colour printer job, on big paper, and stuck to the wall with Blu-Tack. You could say that alone is pretty impressive – that it has lasted this long in a pub when it is so fragile in nature.
What tickles me to no end is that I’m the one in the picture! It was just a night with a pint, lost in history – until iDJ chose it as one of many pictures he printed out and stuck around the pub for my fortieth birthday party. We took them all down at the end of the night – except for this one. The landlord asked if we would leave it up. Of course I wasn’t going to say no. He says he still gets compliments on my smiling face and the perfect pint in hand. Yay, me! I especially like that I just happened to also be wearing a necklace made by my stepmom which is very appropriate: it’s an Irish penny.
My short-lived modelling career when I was young didn’t pan out, but hey, I still got it. Particularly when someone gives me a fresh pint…
Feb3
I have nothing of importance to say.
But I’m here anyway. I guess I sort of treat this thing like a diary, or Morning Pages – even though I’m here in the evening for the most part.
I have so much random shit in my head that I feel the need to babble a bit.
I’d be seriously tempted to take off on Monday, so I could watch the Stuper Bowl in the pub. It doesn’t even start until 11:30 here! No way I can watch even a little unless I have the next day free. I have to sleep; not getting enough sleep is worse than the worst hangover for me. I don’t even care about the Super Bowl, really. iDJ likes to watch it, and he likes the idea that I’m getting a little bit of ‘home’ even if we don’t get to see any of the commercials (the best part, at least until hell freezes over and my Browns are in the Bowl). I mostly like being the only person in an entire sports bar that knows how the game is played. I really get a kick out of telling the men the rules, and it makes up for all the questions I ask during a rugby match (a much superior sport, and the Six Nations also starts this Sunday – Ireland v Wales).
About blogging: WordPress has some VideoPress thingie they are all happy about. I checked it out: it allows video upload from iPads. That would be very nice. If it didn’t cost over $50 a year. Go away.
I have £45 in Amazon gift certificates, the oldest dating back to early August. I can’t make myself buy anything: I don’t spend money on myself. I don’t know how to do it without going crazy, so I just don’t. I had a look on Amazon a little while ago… There are five Dean Koontz books I do not own! How did this happen? I don’t like his work as much as I used to, but I collect his books and have for decades. Ugh. Those five alone take me to £40. I also really, really want all of the Stephen King Wasteland graphic novels. I have some of them, but he just keeps making more. Damn him. The cheapest is £12.12. Bollocks, that puts me over the limit. There’s also a new Zelda game for the Wii. The previous one was brilliant and I spent over 70 hours playing it, so whatever they ask, it is pretty much worth it. But then I could only get the game and one, possibly two of the Koontz… What do I put back? I can’t decide. So, I’ll leave it for another few months, until there is even more crap I want but don’t need.
Right, I think I’ve rambled on long enough. Except I didn’t mention the two flat tires on the Mini this morning, and how the air hoses – both of them – at the closest garage didn’t work, and I had to use the little compressor we keep in the car (thankfully) and how I was almost late for work when I meant to get there early…
Jan22
Second darkness adventure
We tried again to see the aurora, and again we failed. Again due to cloud-cover.
iDJ is diligently perusing the net and twitter trying to find out the latest details and if anyone else has seen it. He gave up a while ago on our taking a third trip up the mountain and opened a bottle of wine.
When you see the pics I took of the road up the mountain, you’ll see why sobriety is a must if you want to drive up…
I was less nervous tonight, in my passenger seat. Perhaps because I’d been on that road twice the night before and survived, or maybe because I was looking through a camera instead of my own eyes. Without a doubt I have been a passenger when the road was worse than it is this year. I don’t know if I’d be brave enough to drive it myself. Well, I would, but only if guaranteed no one was coming down while I was going up, or vice-versa.
Now, before I start with the pics, please remember we were driving and it was bumpy. Therefore, they are blurry. And dark.
This is the only ‘good’ picture, because we were stopped. It was also at the bottom of the hill on the way back home. This is the good part of the road: it is flat, it isn’t rutted, it isn’t washed away by rain or full of holes from logging trucks or tractors. Good road. Really.
I edited this shot to brighten it up and make everything more visible. Going uphill, and curving. Only spinning the tires a little bit here…
Getting worse, and steeper…
This picture is both cropped and brightened. Notice the ditch on the left, and the wall of vegetation on the right? Did you forget another car could be coming down toward us around the blind corner at any moment? Just where are we meant to pull aside to make room?
Still going…
Hooray! At the top. That’s my little town, all lit up and looking so small from here.
We might have missed the aurora, but I enjoyed seeing my home like this at night.
Jan22
And another rosebud…
I was thinking about the post I just put up, and looked out back. I can’t imagine how I missed this one.
Jan22
The winter that wasn’t
I’ve not been spending much time outdoors of late. The job means I leave and return in the dark, or near enough. The constant rain keeps me in on the weekends, too.
Today, however, there have been little glimmers of sunshine now and again. So I got outside and cleaned up here and there – swept up chunks of moss that flew from the roof, picked up dog poo. I also took the last remaining branches off our Christmas tree, and hauled the trunk outside to saw into fireplace sized chunks. Then I swept again, which at first made me feel stupid for having to do it twice, but then I realised there was just as much new moss as there was before I had swept at all.
It’s sunny and dry, it doesn’t mean there is no wind!
Chores out of the way, I had a little walkabout to see what, if anything, was growing. What a surprise to see this out front:
Snowdrops! Of course, they are one of the earliest to show their heads in spring. But the last time I looked, there wasn’t even any greenery, much less flowers!
Also out front:
My scraggly tulips are well on their way. These are at least 8in (20cm) high already. Not good, really – I think it is way too soon for this much leaf. Hope it doesn’t frost or snow.
I got these for free two autumns ago:
Daffodils. I really don’t care for them that much, but hey, they were free and I just stuck them in the grass in the swampiest part of the back garden.
The big surprise, however, was finding this:
A rosebud, in January? Oh dear. The weather is certainly unusual this year!
Jan21
Adventures in the dark
Another short post tonight. This time I’m sober. I drank enough last night for three nights! Whee!
However the main reason for our sobriety tonight is that the aurora borealis was meant to show up in our skies. We’d first heard it might start last Monday, but the updates have been, well, updated, and it was tonight and/or tomorrow. So we waited and hoped, and then went for a drive up our local mountain to see if we could see anything.
No joy, unfortunately. It’s too overcast. Rats. At least it wasn’t raining, but let me tell ya, even in the daylight in summer it is windy and cold up there, so a nocturnal January visit was really chilly. It’s also rather terrifying just driving up that road. I’ll try to get pics for you tomorrow.
I’ve not been up there at night before, it was really pretty but hard to photograph. Need to use the ‘good camera’ and hope the gusts of wind don’t make the shot too blurry!
Jan6
Happy Nollaig na mBam!
I’d like to wish all of my female readers a very happy Nollaig na mBam – which translates into English as ‘Women’s Christmas.’ In Ireland, this is the day when the women folk would take down the decorations and after that, they weren’t meant to do a lick of work around the house for the rest of the day. In particular, no cooking! It is the day for the women who have done all the work of preparing and cooking for the holidays to relax and have a sherry or even a glass of the porter.
I just might take the idea on board this year. My tree is divested of tinsel and ornaments already, but only because it dropped needles like some ladies of poor morals drop their undergarments:
Is that not the most pathetic looking tree ever? We were warned that this would happen. We had a very warm November so our native trees didn’t ‘set’ their needles for the winter as they normally would. But daaaaamn, this is horrible. I usually take a few weeks to cut up and burn our tree for firewood, and I’m having trouble figuring out how to do so without making a mess day after day after day. As iDJ said, we should have decorated that ginormous Umbrella plant instead.
So that’s one reason why I might celebrate women’s Christmas. Another is that I should, by all Irish reasoning, celebrate my first week of working by going out to the pub.
Another is that my Canadian friend is back in town after being away (close, but not close enough to drink & walk home) over the holidays. We should go have a girly drink together, no boys allowed.
The only thing holding me back is (besides being broke) that I have a cold… I’m pretty damn tired. But I sorta feel like a girly night out…
Gak, ‘girly’ is such a misnomer when it is women like us! But I don’t mind for some reason when it is me saying it.
Dec21
Playing Holiday catch up
I bounced out of bed this morning with every intention of writing a blog post first thing. Ya see how well I did at that! I did send my Irish holiday cards out, having sent the US ones last week. They will probably all be late, or get lost. Oh well, I did my least. Not best – not even close – which is a shame.
I used to seek out family members to send cards to. Aunties, cousins, friends I’d not seen in years… I had great fun. I always wanted to draw on the envelopes and have good handwriting (HA!), include a personal message, and get them sent out in plenty of time. I even wanted to start the week after the *holidays and save them up for the next year. I wanted to draw my own card in Brushes this year, and have ‘real’ cards! I didn’t do any of that, obviously. I scrawled a short everyone-gets-the-same-thing message and gave one shit not about my horrible penmanship.
*As an atheist I know about as much about Judaism as I do about Catholicism or paganism – not very much about any, but more than some. Members of my family are in all three groups and there are also ‘meh’ people like me; so when I say ‘holidays’ I’m covering all the bases. Wish me whatever suits you, I won’t be offended by any or all of the above. Christmahanukwanzica works, too! It’s the happy feelings and keeping in touch that matters most to me. That, and Deth Nog.
Oh oh oh! The Twelve Days of Kwanzaa is on SomaFM! I love this one. I seem to like the twelve days parodies best: Kwanzaa, Gay, Redneck…
Anyhow, I’m getting way off topic as usual. I had a story to tell (I did tell a funny story about Hanukkah in the comments on another blog), but instead I’m rattling on about the holidays. Funny how that works. Hubby is still working on his Internet radio23.org Christmas special – he looooves doing it. He even posted on FB tonight how the songs make him ‘well up.’ Awww. Nice to hear, when we have nothing but hugs to give each other this year.
Except for that little package that fell out of the tree yesterday. It has my name on it, and I recognize the wrapping paper. Dammit.
Oh! He gave me his old iPhone, and it came with the Hipstamatic application. I’ve not played with it much, but tonight we had a gorgeous sunset and I thought I might catch the Christmas tree with the sunset behind it on some groovy retro film. It didn’t work, but I got a couple good close up pics:
Then I went upstairs so I could see the sunset properly without a huge tree in the way.
See how different they are? Same phone, taken about 1 minute apart…but the funky film and different ‘flash’ options make a big difference. I can see why people go a bit nuts with the Hipstamatic app. It’s great fun if you have an eye at all for mentally seeing how it might look old, scratchy, the wrong color, etc.
This was taken with our proper camera, only a few minutes later. Super zoomed in, but not filtered or played with in any way. A big difference!
Hahah, ‘I Came Upon a Roadkill Deer’! I love SomaFM. ‘Be careful of those gravel bits, they really get stuck in your teeth.’ OH! ‘Walkin’ Round in Women’s Underwear’!!!
I think I’m back in the holiday spirit 🙂
Dec15
Maybe the holiday blues
I’m not sure what’s going on with me. I don’t feel like drawing or writing. My appetite isn’t the best, and I still haven’t bothered with Christmas cards. I’m not motivated to do a single thing.
I’ve a ton of pics from my international holiday fest to put up, and I don’t feel like it. Most of my holiday decorations are shoved willy-nilly on my dusty bookshelves and not prettily arranged. I have a new Stephen King book…well, yes, I do want to read that. Maybe that’s the reason I don’t want to do anything? I’d like to comfortably immerse myself in his world.
Maybe I’m really feeling the loss of a friend. I met him once fifteen years ago, but we’d met up on Facebook. He was 44, handsome and funny, and I was trying to get him to visit Ireland and go diving off the coast of Mayo. He was the best and childhood friend of my ex-boyfriend (and ex-employer, and good friend still). He killed himself around Thanksgiving and wasn’t found for a week. I only found out on Tuesday.
I know I’m over emotional right now – the holiday charity commercials are making me tear up. Especially the one for the Salvation Army with the sad, lonely old woman. I know she’s an actor, but ouch, she gets to me. Good thing I haven’t seen any ads for Cat’s Trust yet this year, or any animal shelters. I’d be in bits.
Tonight should be Oirish Tirsday: my phone call to Socks while iDJ spins the mp3’s upstairs. But, she’s gone home for an early Christmas with her family and to assist her mother in law’s recovery from knee surgery. Maybe I’m a bit lonely after the excitement of the week? Maybe I am, as Socks put it, grieving for my upcoming loss of our weekly marathon phone call? How horrible to grieve about less time with a friend when the reason is one that makes the friend so happy.
Maybe I also think I am an arsehole for feeling that way, if I do. I’m not sure….I knew it was coming, after all.
Maybe I’m also mourning the loss of having most of my time to myself. I have a job again. I’ll be stuck back into a rigid structure not of my own devising. I’ll have to do what others say, when they say it. I’ll have to talk on the phone and eat lunch at a specific time.
I’ll have to put on a bra every day. The horror.
It sucks being broke, but man, I did like not having to work for someone else. I came up with a bunch of business ideas so I didn’t have to work for anyone else, but until the art came along my hubby was not supportive of any of my schemes.
And now that I have found the art, I have to leave it for a 9-5. Sigh.
I noticed a lot of bloggers seemed a bit down two weeks ago. There seemed to be a run of posts about loss at the end of November. Maybe I’m a bit slow and am only now getting to that place.
I do miss my family, as small as it is. Maybe that makes it harder, to only have a few close to you and be so far from them. I’d love to hug my dad and have one of his homebrewed beers, his roast beef and Yorkshire Pudding, his traditional Christmas morning cinnamon buns. I’d love to share my niece’s second Christmas – this time I think she’s old enough to start to feel the magic. I miss my mother, always.
Here in Ireland, I miss being able to afford going out to the pub and having a great time with everyone in the town. Everyone showing off their new clothes or jewellery, old friends and family returned home for the week, lots of laughter and drink and of course, the craic. We drink a lot here because that’s where you meet everyone and all the best stories are made. It’s hard to explain until you’ve experienced it. Socks visited once, she understands now. My father would cut off his foot to move here for it.
Maybe I feel the weight of so much change and flux bearing down upon me. I’m not so sure I like as much change as I used to.
Maybe it’s just the good old holiday blues.
heretherebespiders 