Cricket In County Kerry.

What could be more quintessentially Irish than seeing a game of Cricket in county Kerry?  

Is there a more stunning backdrop/vista of Tralee Bay in the background? 

We drove from Tralee to Fenit on Saturday afternoon and passed through the village of Spa. We couldn't believe our eyes.  A game of Cricket was being played at Kerry Cricket club.

We talked to one of the Cricketers.  He said they play mainly 20 -20.  We told him about the new 100 format where each team gets 100 bowls at each other.  We were intrigued that Cricket was being played in Ireland.  He said there are Cricket grounds in all the Cities and they are very keen on it in the North.

It was a magical sight and that great Manchester band 10CC song started playing on my mental jukebox:

What's So Great About Great?

One thing I really like about working with people is the conversations we have.  Living in the countryside I can go days without speaking to anyone other than immediate family.  I think that's why I write and  compose blogs and comment on my favourite blogs that I follow.

I was talking to someone when I was working the other day.  He remarked that he couldn't understand why when people refer to the famine in Ireland it's called the Great Famine.  He said there was nothing great about it.  I agreed and said that the first world war is often called the great war.

I thought this might be a 'great" topic for a blog post.  So I looked up other examples of when great is used:

Great Wall of China.

Great Lakes.

Great Dane.

Catherine the Great.

Great Bear.

Arthur Ashe was a tennis great.

I am sure you have examples of the word great?

Do you remember Bullseye?  "How you doing, smashing, great!" 

"I Just Don't Know What To Do With Myself".

 I've been working all week and going on my twice daily free cruise across the bay to the island and back.  Will catch up with  my favourite blogs soon.

A group/duo I would have loved to see in the early noughties would have been The White Stripes.  They consisted of Jack White on Guitar and vocals and Meg White.  They are from Detroit in Michigan.

I once watched then on Later with Jools on BBC 2 and Jools said they were a brother and sister duo.  When in fact they were actually married at the time.

Probably their signature tune is Seven Nations Army.  How many times have I heard number two son playing that tune on his electric guitar?

I'm not going to play that though.  I'm going to play a cover song by Mary Catherine Bernadette O'Brien or Dusty Springfield to be precise.  She was  born in West Hampstead of Irish parents.  Her mother was born in Tralee in County Kerry.  Dusty's ashes were sprinkled over the cliffs of Moher in County Clare.

I really like both versions of this song:

Beetroots And Yellow Wellies.

 

"Oh they called them yellow wellies!"

That's me this very morning harvesting a very nice beetroot specimen in 'Portugal' my plastic polytunnel pal.

I sowed them and planted them in a polystyrene welder packing case.  They've had no chemicals just chicken pellets and some of my cow poo and nettles garden tea.  

Like the great comedian Frank Carson would say: " It's a cracker!"

Like the majority of our vegetables, beetroot originate in the middle east and are said to be a seaside plant.    They like a sprinkle of salt when they are growing and it also helps keeps the slugs and snails away.

Beetroot is very popular in Russia and central and Eastern Europe.  Beetroot is very good for cleansing the blood too.

The beetroot is now boiling away in a big pan with it's leaves still intact.  Brotherhood of Man recorded the following b side to the Eurovision song contest, honest!

"Beetroots for tea.  Save your beetroots for me...  "

Rabbits Grazing In A Cemetery.

We noticed four rabbits happily grazing in a new part of a cemetery the other day:

The cemetery grounds staff keep the grass mown and the rabbits obviously enjoy the young and tender short grass.

Animals are so resourceful and don't mind using a cemetery for a dining place.

It's good to see rabbits grazing instead of us sighing at beautiful animals that have become casualties of roadkill.  I saw a beautiful badger dead in the middle of a main road the other day.  All it had done was to go for a stroll and a midnight feast.  There's no cemetery for those poor creatures.  

Wally The Walrus Hijacks A Boat In West Cork.

 West Cork attracts a lot of visitors some rich and some famous.  This week a Walrus decided he didn't want a staycation in his own country near the North Pole.

Wally decided to swim to Clonakilty and go shopping for Barry's tea and Clonakilty Pudding, West Cork whiskey and erm, hijack a boat!

"Leave the car at home or catch a bus, but don't hijack the boat like a Walrus!"

Welcome To My World.

 

Imagine if you could find an old McDonald's restaurant and you could make it into your very own giant sized bungalow? 

Come the glorious revolution we will all have our choice of what we want.  I'd like my own dustbin wagon and my own ex Ronald McDonald restaurant, drive through and takeaway to convert into my very own mega sized bungalow complete with a full sized snooker table, jukebox, bar, cinema and library.  

I don't want much do I?  

What would be your perfect abode to make into your home?

Living Next Door To The Atlantic Ocean.

We watched Atlantic: a year in the wild, on Saturday night on Channel 5.

The flora and fauna, water and landscape above and below the water was amazing.  

Richard Branson should explore under the oceans instead of outer space where nothing exists.

I recently watched My Octopus Teacher on Netflix and wrote about it on here.  If you've not seen that documentary please watch it! It's so beautiful and so incredibly poignant.

Regular readers know I can see the bay from our kitchen window.  This bay is part of the Atlantic ocean.  So it was very interesting to watch the programme yesterday evening.

Apparently the Atlantic stretches from pole to pole.  It's deepest bit is 37000 feet and it's waves can reach fifty seven feet and they can weigh one thousand tons! "Yoikes Scooby".

It was a great programme and soon it will be gale season on the Irish Riviera.  It's such a mild climate but it does get very windy and gets more than it's fair share of rain.

Here's a video of the wild Atlantic way.  Ireland is such a spectacular and beautiful country.

.

Peg Stop.

 I have heard of a Pit stop  but never a Peg stop.

There we were driving back to West Cork yesterday and the wife said:

" We'll  have to stop soon.  There's a  post office shop round here and I want to get something we need."

We were on a country road in the middle of nowhere and the car stopped.  My wife got out and went inside and came back with two plastic bags of PEGS!

" They're the ones that don't have springs and don't break".

" Oh I says".

Anything for a quiet life.  It could have been worse like Hoover bags!

She Took The Last Train Out Of My Heart..

 Yet more Rock band heroes have recently passed away over the last couple of weeks: two Cinderella members, the bass player from ZZ Top and the once former Kansas band violinist and singer Robby Steindhardt.    There must be one mighty Rock festival being played every day in Heaven.

It's a sign of your own mortality when your Rock heroes are getting old and achieving the ultimate freedom:  playing music in eternal paradise.

I remember me and my mates jumping in the back of a Ford Transit van in 1987 and setting off to Castle Donington "Monsters of Rock" festival in Derbyshire.   Cinderella  kicked off the festival about one o'clock in the afternoon.  They strutted their stuff and were probably one of the best ever bands I have ever seen to kick off a music festival.

Thanks to good old You Tube.  We can watch these favourite bands over and over again,

I discovered this gem by Cinderella lead singer  Tom Keifer.  I can't  stop playing it.  Enjoy:

Watching A Film Set In France On A Boring Irish Bank Holiday Weekend.

We stayed at home yesterday after our carbooting jaunt on Saturday.  We made some Sangria and I decided to flick through Netflix films and documentaries.  Sometimes I look in the British films and we won't watch anything with violence and it's  a struggle sometimes to find anything to watch.

Then somehow I found Under The Eiffel Tower:

It's  a wonderful film set in the French countryside full of vineyards and a female lead that would make anyone instantly fall in love with.  Yes the story is your typical strangers meeting on a train, sharing a bottle of wine made on a French vineyard where coincidentally the heroine works and jointly owns.

The storylines got some interesting subplots and a bit predictable ending.  But if you want sheer escapism and to gaze at an amazing French actress, beautiful food, wines, vineyards and rural gobsmacking countryside.  Give it a whirl!

Judith Godreche is amazing!

Garden Plants For Sale.

 

We went carbooting yesterday.  I loaded the car up with my perennials the night before.

There were only an handful of carboot sellers and we set up at 9.30 and waited for the world and his wife to arrive at eleven.  This never transpired.

We did meet some really nice people, the sun shone and we made twelve Euros after paying for our pitch.  Not a bad days takings from 9.30 to three.

I much prefer buying than selling!

Carbooting is like fishing. Some days you never have a bite.

Oh well!