A Birthday Present.

 I reached the grand old age of 62 last Friday.  Like that great English folk singer Sandy Denny once sang:

"Who knows where the time goes?"

I received few nice birthday presents including  a bottle of Jameson whiskey and a tub of chocolates, a towel and this cup:

It made me laugh anyway.😄  I

Just the ticket for a cup of real coffee from the French press in the morning.

"I will Make Them Fit For That Price".

 I went for a more stroll this morning in my new walking shoes.

When I got next to the sea I noticed seaweed on the road.  The white horses of waves are getting stronger by the hour.

Storm Bram is arriving tomorrow night.

It started raining but at least I got four miles of exercise in.

I wore my new walking shoes:

Regatta walking shoes and someone bought me the socks for my sixty second birthday last Friday.

I have worn the soles off two pairs of walking shoes and boots this year.

Thee other week I went to town and browsed a hiking shop.  They had a lot of stuff in the sale.

I noticed a pair of size twelve Regatta walking shoes.  There was no price on them.  The lady shop keeper said she only that pair left.  Their original price was 100 Euros .  She would let me have them for thirty.

Regular blog readers know that Jean and me always looked for a bargain especially at carboot sales the summer. 

I said:

"I will make them fit for that price".

The lady laughed and ai tried on the boots.  I normally go for size eleven to allow for one foot being bigger than the other.  Measure yours if you don't  believe me.  Also your feet swell when you go on long walks.

I bought two thick anti blister socks for fifteen Euros.

The boots/shoes are really comfortable and I wear another pair of socks inside the thick hiking socks.

I was pleased with my find.

 

Collecting Free Seaweed Fertilizer With My Trusty Rucksack.

 

I went for a saunter the other day looking like I was going on a Irish hiking and camping trip in winter.  

I use to go camping in the Lake District at New Year when I was in my early twenties.  But I'm not doing it at my age in rainy Ireland.   

Everywhere is swimming especially the veg plot with the relentless wet winters we have had for  the last five years here.

My plot needs lots of tlc and weeding.  Unfortunately it will have to wait until we get a week or so of dry weather.

I don't think I will grow so much veg next year and I will use some of the raised beds for perennials and make it more French potager style.  Which should look attractive and hopefully attract benefical insects and bees and butterflies.

I picked up my trusty big rucksack from it's slumber on top of the wardrobe and placed it on my back and walked to our nearest beach

A bag full of seaweed and my hiking boots and big rucksack.

I emptied the seaweed out into my weeding bucket.

I'm going to fork in the annual weeds and use them for a natural green manure and spread the seaweed over the raised bed.  The potatoes next year should love it.  I will also spread some well rotted fym over the winter.

My late grandfather use to collect horse carts full of seaweed for his veg garden.  Organic gardening was carried out for thousand of years by our ancestors.

There's supposed to be 40 trace elements in seaweed and it's weed free.

So I  went for a walk and collected some seaweed for the veg plot.  Talk about killing two birds with one stone.  We both benefited  didn't we?

Have rucksack can carry things👍😃.

Do you collect seaweed for your veg plot?

"Two Day's In The Year You Can't Do Nothing About: Yesterday And Tomorrow." A Cork Grave Digger And Poet.

I don't want to appear maudlin ( English  north country slang)  but I found the following vignette of a video on good old YouTube.  

It's incredibly well done, beautifully filmed and I think you will like all the man's heart felt words and the music:

 

I hope a book publisher asks this lovely man to write a book for him.  I would love to read it wouldn't you? 

 Or perhaps a television programme meeting every day people like you or me?  We all have a story to tell.

A 8 Mile Round Trip To Post A Letter In The Mizzle.

 Life seems to have gone pear shaped in the last 12 weeks.

Yesterday Monday there was a letter that needed to be posted.  The nearest post boxes are a few or several miles apart in opposite directions.

Our main road can be dangerous at times and I have had some very close misses walking along it.  I jest not.

Oh to go all sentimental and rose tinted and go back to that Ryan's Daughter rural Ireland landscape of donkeys and carts, and the only traffic jams were when dairy cow were going for grazing, or home to be milked.

Times have changed and cars and lorries speed passed and you feel like a frightened rabbit caught in the glare of a metal dinosaurs eyes or even headlights.

I put on my yellow safety vest and packed my waterproof trousers and some refreshments in my trusty small rucksack.

It started to rain and 'November Rain" by Guns N Roses began to play in my mental jukebox.

I waved to passing motorists who gave me a wide margin and indicated when they passed by.

A couple of farm dogs came and barked at me and I praised them for doing such a grand job protecting their owners property.

I also saw a dead cat that had been knocked down and someone had kindly placed it on top of a drystone wall.  I also noticed a flat hedgehog lying in the road.  Roadkill saddens me.

I didn't speak or see anyone walking in the West Cork mizzle.  Mist and drizzle make mizzle. 

Eventually I got to my half way destination and posted my letter and took a photo of the green An Post letter box:

Painted green not red like the ones in dear old Blighty.🤔

"Return To Sender"by Elvis and "Please Mr Postman" by The Carpenters were playing on my mental jukebox all the way East. Whilst I drank my Lucozade, ate my apples and biscuits and watched the bay.

It wasn't too bad a walk and it keeps me fit.

How far do you go to post a letter?

A Drystone Wall Built By Cornish Miners And Pennywort and Ivy.

 A very old drystone wall believed to have been built by Cornish miners who mined and worked on our peninsula in the nineteenth century.  

The wall is a few hundred feet long and covered in Ivy and Pennywort.  The Pennywort are round shaped like pennies.

Years ago our ancestors had medicinal uses for many herbs and plants.  Pennywort was used to treat inflammation and I have read of Pennywort soup being used to treat bee stings.

They really were clever and resourceful our ancestors.  

I often walk past this wall on my walks.  I walked four miles yesterday and eight today.

I have really got back into walking again.  Apart from wearing out shoe leather.  Walking is free and gets you fit.

From Plot To Pot. Leek And Potato 🥔 Soup.

My leeks just lifted from the repurposed plastic oil tanks raised beds.  

The water table is very full at the moment and raised beds definitely improve the drainage.  I am in my early sixties and gardening at knee and waist height makes life easier for me.

I chopped and sweated the leeks and potatoes in a pan with some butter on top of the gas stove.  I blackened the pan in the process. 😄

I poured in some water and broke up a stock cube and waited to bring it to the boil.

The soup.  I could of liquidised it but I don't  mind lumpy veg soup.  I really must get into learning how to prepare and cook food.  It's not easy when your wife did everything for you for the last thirty years.  I just grew the vegetables and tended the plot.  

The leeks are our home grown, organic vegetables and the potatoes and soda bread came from Lidl. 

I think if I had added some meat like minced beef.  It would make a good stew or broth.  It was a good warm and hearty mel on a cold winter's day.

Any one else growing veg and making their own soup?