Pictures Of Some Of The Bands At Cropredy.

The Bar Stewards Sons Of Val Doonican.  Yorkshire's finest since Saxon perhaps?  I have seen both of them now and how very enjoyable and entertaining they both are.

Toyah and Robert King Crimson Fripp. 

Sharon Shannon and band.  Seen her before in West Cork.

Clannad.  That's the second time I have seen them this year and sadly probably the last time.  

Slambovian Circus Of Dreams.

Irish folk band at the fringe festival.  Whiskey In The Jar was excellent.

Genius alert.  Steve Hackett.  Mr Genesis himself.  Nad Sylvan was excellent on vocals.

A certain very amusing Barnsley based band again.  Hope you enjoyed the photos.  I will write about Oxford next.
 

Here's a video I found on good old You Tube of Steve Hackett at Cropredy.  I'm in the crowd there somewhere.  Enjoy!

Cropredy Festival Punters Photos.

 

Cropredy revellers.  It was 33 degrees when I took these photos.

Expensive food.  Click on the photo for prices.

Mainstage Cropredy.

My festival liquid accompaniment and refreshment.

In Banbury town we ate large breakfasts in Wetherspoon's for five Pounds Eighty and I would drink two pints of Ruddles or Doombar at nine in the morning.  The Ruddles was 1.48 a Pint and the Doombar was 2.19.  I also managed to buy bottles of dog or Newky Brown in the Asian owned off licences in Banbury and Cropredy village.  The stewards at Cropredy allow you to take your own beer.  I only bought one pint at the festival:

I preferred my Doombar and Newky Brown bottles.  We can't purchase such Ambrosia in Hibernia now that Brexit happened.  I can't get my Hollands pies from Iceland either.    Hope you like the pictures?

And So On To Blighty and Cropredy.

Memorial tree with name plates of festival goers who are no longer with us.

Oxford Canal.

Chocolate box thatched cottages.

A Dalek.

Strange bird creature in the hedge.

Cropredy war memorial. 

Bunting for the Queen's Jubilee. 

Ancient Cropredy church.

Royal visitors perhaps?

Knitted characters.

The canal locks.

We flew from Cork to Birmingham the day before the music festival just outside of Banbury in Oxfordshire.

It was like flying into Faro with all the fields, lawns and an odd cricket field scorched brown.

We negotiated the ticket offices and caught the free train to Birmingham International Railway station.   Then we waited for the Bournemouth train that took us to Banbury.

Enjoy the photos.

A Visit To The South Pole. The Inn That Is!

 We stayed at a campsite across the road from Inch Beach for a few days  before we flew to Birmingham from Cork.

The next morning after arriving at Inch Beach we got back on the Kerry Camino and Dingle Way and walked over the hill four miles to Anascaul.  It was a glorious day and such a relief not to be carrying heavy rucksacks and camping equipment.

We passed a few hikers and a man and a woman were carrying shopping bags and rucksacks like we had the previous days.

We walked into a Grocers to see if they had a delicatessen but it was very limited so we walked down the street to the South Pole Inn.  The last time I had posted a picture of the pub it was closed.

Fortunately on this visit it was open.  It's the former home of Antarctic explorer Tom Crean.  An incredibly brave man and part of Shackletons Antartic exploration team. 

We ordered two pints of Tom Crean IPA which is brewed in Kenmare by his Grandaughter I do believe .

Then we walked back over the hill and back to Inch.  I met a lady hiker carrying a rucksack.  I said my usual "hello" and told her that she would be able to get a refreshing pint in a couple of miles.  The lady smiled and her eyes lit up.

It had been a nice 8 miles stroll without out burdensome rucksacks.

"That's How It Is".

 I forgot to mention yesterday that we managed to walk back into Dingle that evening and had a couple of pints, bought some cans of beer and purchased some food from the local chipper or chipoyle or even chippy like they say in Blighty.  This was the same chip shop that I had once witnessed an American lady asking for 'wet' fish a few years ago.  She reminded me of the American lady in the Arran Isles asking my wife "what's in a breakfast roll?" All true stories that you couldn't make up.

It was a Sunday morning and we packed our tents and saturated by dew tent rain cover sheets and crammed them into our rucksacks.  We decided to make our way back into Dingle and visit the Tourist Information.

We walked inside and I told the two ladies that we wanted the Dingle Way route to Lispole and Anascaul.  Last time we had walked this way and ended up going along the side of the Conor pass and ended up at Cloghane because there was no sign post or Brown arrow.  They told me to go over a bridge and we would end up at Lispole.  I said there are not enough sign posts on the Dingle Way and the lady shrugged her shoulders and said: "That's how it is!"

We set off and stocked up on food at Lidl.  I didn't fancy carrying half a dozen cans of beer over hill and dale.  Sure enough we couldn't find the there said bridge and I waited with the rucksacks and Lidl bags whilst my friend went on a reconisance missionor even  a look for the bridge mission to find the the bridge and sign post,

About twenty minutes later another German couple with no rucksacks or Lidl bags walk past me.  I asked them if they had come over the bridge from Lispole? "Ya" said the man.  Have you not got zee GPS App?  I shook my head and didn't have the heart to say "I can't even plug my mobile phone in to charge it".

We found the bridge and climbed a stile and walked over the the hill and walked down a road and came to a cross with no sign post.  There was no one around to ask for directions and we were lost again and ending up walking miles along a very busy main road going to Lispole.  

It was getting dark and we were thinking of wild camping somewhere and a lady nay saint in a car pulled up and said she had passed us 3 times and did we want a lift somewhere? I thought on my feet and said "Inch beach please!"  Several miles later the saintly Irish lady dropped us off and refused any offer of payment.   What a wonderfully kind lady!

Another Attempt At Hiking Along The Dingle Way.

 

Inch Beach.  Famous for the race scene in Ryan's Daughter.

People who have been reading my rants and scribbling for the last twelve years or so might remember when I walked part of the Dingle Way and discovered the Maharees and gained enormous blisters and walked an hundred miles in a weekend and returned home absolutely knackered and felt like David Carradine walking the 17 miles of beach back to Camp?

Since then I found out that by the magic of the Tinternet and T'web that one foot is bigger than the other.  Honestly.  Also your toes get looser as you age and I found out that one should be wearing size 11 boots not 10.  You see your feet swell when you walk long distances.

Any road or anyway.  We set off from Dunquin after showing my friend Peig Sayers gravestone which I have featured on here before.  We set off along a very busy main road and attempted to find our way back on the Dingle Way.  Our rucksacks weighed a ton and it was a red hot summers day.  Someone said we could get back on it at Ventry.  I asked  a middle aged man how far was it to Ventry.  Which he pronounced it quite different to me.  

We met a German couple walking to Dunquin and they couldn't find the Dingle Way either.   I explained that from previous experience that a lot of the Dingle Way consists of tarmac roads.

We were not happy bunnies and my toes had developed an enormous blister or two.  About fifteen miles later we arrived at a campsite in Dingle.  My friend was asked for his passport and the campsite proprietor made a weak joke that he had no pitches available.  

It was a cold night and we woke up to a very heavy dew.   I remembered old wifey had bought me some blister plasters from the chemists and I applied them to my very sore tootsies.  They were brilliant and I walked for miles and miles over the next few days with no pain.  I felt like that old Remington razor advert: "I was so impressed with the product that I bought the company".    Blister plasters are like garlic bread.  They are the future! Eight Euros for blissful comfort.

Talking About Seagulls.

 Whilst waiting for the ferry to the Great Blasket Islands I talked to the ferry ticket office lady.

We talked about the Atlantic storms in Winter and how the Blasket Island ferry stops running in September.  I said if I ever built an house again it would have it's own basement and we wouldn't even know the storms were present.  Instead we build houses for the view overlooking the bays. We both agreed.

I told her that I have read three books about the island and in particular I liked the Loneliest Boy In The World.  His only friends were Seagulls.   The lady told me that I would see lots of Seagulls on the ferry journey and on the island.  I think she thought I liked Seagulls and was perhaps an Anorak ? Talking of Anoraks.  We met Waterloo Man at Croperdy.  Stay tuned.  Why do I keep spelling Cropredy Croperdy?

I visited the Blasket Island Centre the  next day  on the mainland and saw the picture of the book.

Postcard From The Blasket Isles.

 I arrived back in Cork yesterday tea time.  It's been a grueller of a trip and here's some photos from day one and our trip to the Blasket Isles:

Hope you're all well and I will catch up with the blogs I read.  It's amazing to have electricity, have a shower and sleep in a bed instead of a tent.  I did get to see Steve Hackett and visit the Blasket Isles.

Meant To Be.

 I am starting one of my roughing it holidays this weekend.   This consists of hiking over here and going to two music festivals and visiting some literary places in England.

I walked into a charity shop this morning and spotted a second hand pair of size eleven walking 🚶‍♂️ shoes 👞  for four Euros.  I tried them on and they fit my feet

like a pair of gloves.

Hopefully  I will get to take some great photos and come back with lots of tales to tell.  Keep on blogging folks!

Two Good Reads From The Carboot Sale.

 We found two books for sale at the carboot sales.  Two hardbacks which will live on the coffee tables in the front room and be browsed and put back down over the new few weeks or months.

They cost two Euros each.

The book on the left is called A Rich And Rare Land.  It contains Irish Poetry and Paintings.  It's incredibly beautiful and one of the paintings is the of the Connemara Coleen with the goats which I posted a picture of on here a few weeks ago.

The second book is The Druids by Peter Bereford Ellis.  He writes about the fiction and folklore of ancient Celtic society.  Ireland has many ancient ring forts and stone circles.  I have featured some of them like Drombeg here in West Cork on here.

"What Can It Be?"

 The Lionesses have made me so happy.  They took me back to watching Gregory's Girl with probably the most famous female footballer who every one wanted to have for a girlfriend Dee Hepburn.  It's a great film set in Scotland.   

What a lass. Exquisitely beautiful and she played football.  What more could any one want? Unless of course you fell in love with her and she takes Gregory's place in the school football team.  She's probably the best Dorothy character since Judy Garland in The Wizard Of Oz.

Not forgetting Gregory or John Gordon Sinclair.  I watched a great video on YouTube about the film.  Apparently JGS was a big Rush fan and he noticed an actor wearing a Rush badge and he decided he wanted to be an actor because he followed Canadian Prog Rock bands.  Nothing wrong with a bit of Prog.  I happen to have seen Rush play twice.

Here's a video I found on You Tube:

Dee showed us back then in the 1980s that football is indeed a beautiful game. I love the song.  

Who is you favourite Lioness? Millie Bright is mine.  

How about showing all these great British films every Saturday  night on terrestrial television? There's some great Irish ones too like Ryan's Daughter and The Quiet Man.

"No Not Really".

 I walked into one of those posh vitamin shops the other day.  I think it's called Amsterdam and Carrot or something.

The shop assistant asked "if she could help us?"  I said I was looking for some 'cheap' multivitamins because I will be doing a lot of walking very soon.

I was asked if I was in training and I told the lady I was and she said:  "What drinks are you taking?"

I nearly said: 'Lager, whisky".  But I didn't I just replied:

"Lucozade".

The shop assistant replied: "Not really!"

What's wrong with lucozade?  If you have had a lot to drink 🍸  the night before .  A bottle of Lucozade is like the hair of the dog 🐕 for me!

I bought the cheapest tub of multivitamins for 5 Euros.