My 2023 Highlights And Disappointments.

 Apart from late May and early June it's been very wet in Ireland and also very windy lately.  

Three Irish music stars:  Sinead O' Connor Christy Dignam (Aslan) and Shane McGowan     ( The Pogues) went to  Heaven.

I reached 60 this year and it's sign of old age when your music heroes and heroines are passing away.

My polytunnel "Portugal" finally gave up the ghost and I sold the metal frame to go towards a new secondhand frame and cover.  Oh what fun four of us had putting on the plastic cover on "

Algarve" my new polytunnel.

🐶 Puppies born.

Pigs 🐷 were born.

🥔 Growing in seaweed.

We went to Donegal to see Michael Schenker and his band and drove into northern Ireland to Dublin and back down to West Cork.

A Rock legend. Ballyshannon Rock Festival.

I was there and they rocked!

Stogursey Castle in Somerset. It could be a Constable oil painting couldn't it just?

I hurt my knee and I also hurt my ankle walking on the hills near us.  

I went to Blighty and visited the village in Somerset and surroundings where Coleridge and the Wordsworths lived.  

The tree where Coleridge, Dorothy and William sat and read out loud their poems.

My friend and your truly did lots of walking and I had blisters on the ball of my feet for weeks.  

Wild camping near Tintern Abbey.  No campsites around.  

We also found out again you can't book hotels, some campsites, buy a drink in some pubs if you don't have a card for your method of payment.  Cash is definitely not king in the South of England.

Slad pub where Laurie Lee drank.

We also went to Newark On Trent to Stonedead Rock festival and we saw several bands including Black Star Riders and I saw Blue Oyster Cult for the second time and over thirty years later.

Blue Oyster Cult.  They didn't disappoint.

Work was hard to find  after August but some how mainly due to our children's and their girlfriends kindness.  We managed to go to Tenerife the week before Christmas.

Lady in red bikini lying gazing at the Atlantic.  She looked so elegant and classy.  A proper lass /senorita.

War in Ukraine and Gaza rattles on I despair at mankinds inhumanity to each other.  

I never thought I would hear the leader of the Opposition praise Mrs Thatcher.  

At least Manchester United won a cup for a change.

I  hope to go on a sun holiday some time next year and see some Prog Rock bands again.

Hope you all have a prosperous 2024.