Keeping Warm Christmas Presents.

 We went for a saunter around Aldi the other day.  This is what J bought me for Christmas:

A one size Ladies/Men Hooded Blanket.  Twelve Euros in a cheap discount supermarket.  They are 20 Euros in a more upmarket store like Dunnes or Tesco.

Just the ticket when Storm Eowyn strikes in the next few days or even tonight🤔?

Someone's  obviously been reading my blog posts about me wearing a jumper to bed and fuel poverty?

I wore it to bed and it does what it says on the tin or cardboard even.  It keeps you warm.

Here's what I purchased dear readers:

Two jars of pickles and a bottle of Jameson Irish whiskey.  For making hot toddies only to keep us warm of course. For what other reason would I get a bottle of whiskey?😀

I wouldn't getting mind a nice bottle of malt Scottish whisky.  What is your favourite malt?  Mine's Dalwhinnie.

The King Of Rock'n'roll.

 People often say Elvis Presley was the king of Rock'n'roll.  I must admit I like him a lot and I love watching his videos and would love to visit Gracelands some day.

But for me the man who introduced the world to Rock'n'roll it's  Chuck Berry.  

He brought the blues and soul and invented Rock'n'roll.  John Lennon once said if you want another name for Chuck Berry it's called Rock'n'roll.

Songs like "Johnny Be Goode brought electric guitars and fast music into nineteen fifties lives.  

Let me give you an example of how Chuck struts his stuff and remember it is the nineteen fifties:

Here's another Chuck Berry video:

His facial expressions make me smile.  He dragged the world screaming and dancing into the world we now call Rock'n'roll.

Imagine if Pink Floyd had been around in the early nineteen fifties?

See you tomorrow.

Four Legged Friends In Their Christmas Finery.

 Debby ("Life's Funny Like That") asked me the other day  to show some pictures of Diesel and her canine kin dressed up for Christmas.

Your wish is my command Debby:

Heidi the other day with her Reindeer antlers decorations.

The dogs wearing their Christmas jumper decorations two years ago.

Diesel is at the top of the photo.

At the bottom of the picture is Rosie the Golden Retriever looking on and doting at her puppies in 2022.  

The most golden puppy is Bronte who is on my blog photo and goes on my repurposed railway (Greenways) walks with me.  She is also two.

Here is Diesel again Christmas  2022 in her Christmas jumper.  I think we all wore festive jumpers that year.

Have you any four legged friends dressed up  photos all ready for Christmas 2024?

Homemade Firewood.

 My homemade axe chopped logs.

We go through a bag of discount supermarket logs in a net bag every night.  They charge the kings ransom of 5.99 for them.

So to save a few bob or Euros I have been chopping some old timber up with my grandfathers axe.  

It's had 7 new handles and five new heads.  But it is still my grandfathers axe!  "I'm here all week".

It only takes me about ten minutes to retrieve the wood and attack it with my axe and make pieces that will fit in my big weeding bucket and fit in the stove.

Anyone else making their own firewood?

A 20 kg bag of solid fuel costs 18.50.  This lasts us 2 nights.

Cost of Carbon Tax in Ireland from May 2024:

6 Euros on a 40kg bag of coal.

One Euros on a bale of briquettes.

15 cents on a litre  of diesel/petrol.

127 Euros on the average gas bill.

141 Euros on 900 litres of heating oil.

Are carbon taxes a good idea?  Do they have carbon taxes in other countries?

You must save a lot of money if you live in a hot country in winter?

Does Rab Read My Blog And Look At The Picture For Garden Makeover Ideas?

 Apologies to regular readers for showing the following video again.  But it cracks me up.  I wish gardening programmes were not so serious and middle class.  If I presented a gardening programme it would have lots of jokes and comedy sketches.

Any way going off the video I think Rab gets his garden makeover ideas from looking st my blog.  Do you think so?

Have you any garden projects for next year?  Maybe a pool/bath for "Govan fish? Or "Single parents fish?"😃

Santa Claus, A Rush Guitarist And A Bit Of Black Sabbath.

 Instead of a Christmas card blog post this year.  I am going to gladden your hearts with a festive tune.

Canadian Rockers The Bare Naked Ladies recently team up with for Rush lead guitarist and added a bit of Black Sabbath to a famous festive song:

If you are Prog Rock fan like me you will like the video.  I would love to have seen Rush back in their 2112 days playing this Toronto theatre.  Fortunately I did see them a couple of times in dear old Blighty.

Who would you love to see play live? I would love to see Styx.

A Picture Mug Of A Four Legged Pal At Christmas.

 This a picture of Diesel (Weasel) our Bernese Mountain dog.

Diesel is two years old and she's got the manners and temperament of Paddington Bear.

She's probably the kindest sentient four legged pal I have ever known  She nuzzles me with her nose and rolls over on the couch next to me to tickle her belly!

According to Professor Google her ancestors in Switzerland use to pull carts for the Romans.  Diesel is very friendly like the Swiss, Czechs and of course the Portuguese people.

The photo on the cup is Diesel with her Christmas lights last year.

A lot of my blog friends are poets like myself.  I composed this poem/song for her which we often say or sing:

Diesel Weasel.

Diesel weasel met a weasel,

 Going to the fair,

Said Diesel weasel to the weasel,

What you doing there?

==================

Perhaps I could become the West Cork Poet Laureate?

Apparently there are no weasels in Ireland.  But there is a smaller look a like creature called the Irish Stoat.  

In Connemara it's called: Beanin Uasal.  Which means 'noble little woman'.  Thus reflecting the belief that the Stoat was a witch in animal form.

Perhaps our Diesel's weasel was going to the fair to tell people's fortunes?

More Charity Shop Finds.

There are not many carboot sales at this time of year.  Fortunately there are charity shops to satisfy the inner Womble and I  was sent a whattsapp message and a photo of  these two ornaments:

On the base it says Naturecraft Congleton England.

One figurine is two crown green bowlers having a relaxing pint and a chat about their bowls match.

The second figurine looks like a Grandfather and Grandson fishermen chatting next to the freshly caught fish.

I text back and told J to buy the ornaments.  They cost ten Euros for the pair of ornaments.

I looked them up and they look like they are probably made in the seventies.

I don't know if they are worth much but I like them.

It is good to add to our ever increasing collections of dust collectors or ornaments even.

Are you a collector or are you a minamalist?  I am a collector or Womble.

Holding Up The Garden Centre.

 I found this comic gem on You Tube recently.  If anyone would be daft enough to try to hold up a garden centre?  Well Rab was.

A Retirement Home For Incurable Tyrants And Kings.

 In 1983 English Prog band Pink Floyd released their twelfth album entitled: The Final Cut.  Roger Waters penned: The Fletcher Memorial Home.  

It was a fictitious retirement home for tyrants and kings and people like Thatcher and Reagan, Napoleon and Brezhnev resided there.

 Fletcher is the one of the names of Roger Waters father who was killed in Italy in WW2.  

Although a lot of the world leaders  in the video have passed on.  I think the lyrics are still relevant today.  Especially with what's being reported on the news at the moment.

I saw Roger Waters in Warsaw in 2013 on The Wall tour.  He's some what of a rock genius and he is not afraid to call out injustice in the world no matter who they are.  All he wants is peace.  Don't we all.

I think most world leaders would be my choice for residents in the Fletcher Memorial Home

Who would you place in the Fletcher Memorial Home?  

It's good to play a bit of Prog on a Wednesday.

Cup A Soup Or Soup In A Cup?

 We went food shopping in Macroom on Sunday.

The weather forecast says it is going to get very cold from tonight.  Brr...

How do the salt lorry drivers get to work?  Do they take the gritter lorry home with them?

I invested in a packet of tomato Soup In A Cup for 69 Cents from a discount supermarket.  A posh make like Heinz is 1.95 in Tesco.

That is quite a diffence in price isn't it?  Perhaps the tomato taste is nicer in the dearer box of four sachets?

Today I boiled the kettle and emptied the contents of the sachet into my cup and filled it with hot water.  Then I went to the food cupboard to take out my four slices of bread and guess what?🤔

Yep you are right.  I had only give the bread to the rabbits again a few hours earlier for their breakfast.

I was not an happy bunny.  The rabbits are!😄

I even gave them some straw in their sleeping quarters they ate the last lot.

If it does freeze.  This means rain will follow like night follows day.

Christmas Comes Too Early.

 Sleeping it off.

This photograph is not like it seems.  It could be AI couldn't it just?

Someone had left a can of Heineken in one of the pockets of the dog chewed couch.

The Husky decided to have a nap and she looks like me after Christmas Day dinner.   

We would be hoping that Billy Smart or Mary Chipperfields Circus would appear on the television screen. Those were the days.

We are having Dexter roast beef for Christmas Dinner with my homegrown parsnips and Brussel sprouts with some bought organic spudatoes.  What are ye having?

"Lights Out In West Cork."

 I took this photograph last night when we had a power cut during Storm Darragh:

Just like our Grandparents winters.  I don't think they had scented candles but they give the ambience of what it must have been like.

I suppose they also had Tilley lamps and oil lamps and went to bed early in winter?  

Father would cut a cardboard box into a television shape and place it on his head and say:

" Good evening.  This is the news".😊

I think we had a gas television when I was growing up🤔?

Our power was only out for half an hour thankfully.

Here's Michael Schenker and his group who I saw in Ballyshannon in Donegal in 2o23.  

I knew I could put a music video link in there somewhere.  Time to play "air guitar" me thinks.

.

The Cats Washing Day.

 It's been horrible wet and windy here today.

You wouldn't put a milk bottle out in this weather.  Even the country rats are wearing fur coats.

It's certainly not clothes drying weather outdoors.  

I had a shower and put the washing machine on a sixty minutes wash and then J put the washing in the tumble dryer and folded it and placed in a tub on top of the chest freezer and Muzzmuss decided to make it into her 'day' bed.

It's not only me who likes to repurpose stuff.

I am going to have a couple of hot Irish whiskeys (Jameson) to help me sleep through Storm Darragh.

That's my excuse anway.  Take care and lets hope we still have electricity and T'web tomorrow.

The Cat And Dog Relax And So Do We.

 Scruffy the Main Coon cat and Heidi the German Shepherd (ess) relaxing on the couch.

Dogs and cats are known to be sworn enemies.  This is not the case if they are introduced at the kitten or puppy stage.

Every night the dogs come in and have their tea and settle down with us.  Some of the cats climb up their cat tree and go to sleep.  Some even sit in front of the stove and some decide to reside on the couch or a human's favourite arm chair.

They all crash out and I light the stove and switch on the television and I pour a can of Guinness for myself.

The world outside is pitch black outside sunrise.  No street lights in the countrysidenext to the sea. We have at least seven months relaxing in front of the fire:

It's very windy today.  If the power goes we will watch the flickering flames dance in the stove and I have some scented candles to light if we need to.

Shelley An Orphan. On The Tube.

 My old friend who I met up every year to go to a Prog Rock festival or two usually in Blighty (once in Germany) emailed me mentioning a band that I really like back in the eighties.

They were a Gothic dreamy pop duo from Bournemouth who appeared on stage with an art artist and some classic musicians.

I saw them on The Tube in around 1987.  This was a live music programme from Newcastle on Channel 4 every Friday tea time and presented by Jools Holland and Paula Yates who is no longer with us.

I instantly fell head over heels with this band and when I went to the pub I would rave about this great new band.

My friend in his message told me that the female vocalist from Shelley An Orphan died in 2015.  This made me feel very sad and I wish so much I had seen them play live.

Thanks to good old YouTube I have managed to find a video of them in 1987 on The Tube.

They named themselves after the English poet Percy Shelley.  

Enjoy:

Did you watch The Tube back in the eighties when music was great?

American Gardeners Perhaps?

 There are not many gardening programmes on the old electric fish tank at the moment.  So I do my viewing on good old YouTube.

Here's an American gardening programme  I found for you.  Hope it makes you laugh.  It made me laugh.  Hope it makes Debby (Life's Funny Like That) laugh?

A music post tomorrow.  

Mushrooms And Pints.

 We watched Bill Bailey and Shaun Ryder go for a few pub walks on Channel 4 on Sunday night.

You can watch it on You Tube later.   They walk the Somerset countryside and seek refreshment in a few of the ale houses along the way.  The even go the Glastonbury festival site.  I went there in 1989 and met a lot of characters in the 200000 tent city which I have wrote about on here.  Just put Glastonbury in my blog search if you wish to read some of my festival tales?

Bill seems to have the gift of making people open up and it was a walk/walks full of anecdotes.

Shaun is a real tough northerner with the gift of self deprecation which seems to be instilled in us northern folk.  He's also very funny and the anecdotes he can remember are very entertaining.

I found this programme really enjoyable in the vein of Mortimer and Whitehouse Go Fishing.  It's not so much what they are doing it is what they are taling about.

Well done Channel 4.  You made TV Heaven.

Any one else seen this programme? Who would you like to go on a pub walk with?  Kate Bush and Britney Spears would be two of my choices.   Oh Julia Bradbury is into walking isn't she?

Planting Up The Raised Beds.

 

I  planted this cut down IBC tank with some of my self propagated perennials this very morn.

There are Osteospermums that I grew from cuttings this Autumn and Bergenias (Elephants Ears) that I made by division.

The previous crop in the raised bed was leeks.  

Conditions are wet and cold at the moment.

The perennials give the veg plot a bit ofAutumn cheer.

I even managed to photograph my wellingtons again!  

Anyone else still gardening in December?

Come Back Rock Goes To College And The Old Grey Whistle Test.

 If I was in charge of the Beeb or B.B.C.  I would play old episodes of "Rock Goes To College" and "The Old Grey Whistle Test" from the nineteen seventies and eighties on a weekend evening. 

This was back when great rock bands would play a gig in a  college campus and the beeb would film it and air it to the world and his wife and even to folk in Ingerland.  

Smashing rock bands like Canada's April Wine and that Australian band from Scotland: ACDC would strut their stuff and my mum would shout up the stairs: "Turn it down it's like a bloody fairground". I would turn the knob down to 9 on my 14 inch black and white (monochrome) portable television with the rabbit ears aerial.  Happy days!

"My head is so heavy.  Let's have some Heavy Rock".

Bella or "Thumper" her pet name came into the house  out of the rain yesterday and stood up with her head resting on our car boot sale bought coffee table. She is a Newfoundland.

Here's a video that I am always playing.  I would love to have seen Bon Scott and the lads live:

Watch the Sikh guy at the beginning in the audience.  His face is a picture.  He looks so so happy!

I love this song.  It's  a story about the evolution of Heavy Rock.  If you don't  like Heavy Rock come back tomorrow and I will write about something else!

Billy Connolly said in one of his books I have read.  Rock n roll music started with Elvis Presley in the fifties. I think he was right .  Life must have been pretty dull without Chuck Berry or Elvis?  I am currently playing Chuck Berry records on You Tube at the moment.  I am starting to think that Chuck is truly the king of Rock'n'roll.  

It must have been rather like when we got the Internet in 2009 and my rural  life entered the twenty first century.   Before that I would go the library now and again to get on the old Tinternet and T'web.   

Did you know it was an English man who invented the  Internet?  What a clever man.

 If I reach a very old  age and end up living in an old folks home.  I won't be singing that Vera Lynn song: "Whale meat again". It will be ACDC or Black Sabbath: "Paranoid".   I might be in my sixties but I still rock.

Sorry if you are not singing into your hairbrush or playing air guitar with the house brush.  

I really need to see some live Heavy Rock music again soon.  Country and Irish is not the same some how.  I will write about something else tomorrow and thanks for commenting on my last post.

Irish Election Tales From The Farm Yard Gate.

 "Did ye watch that election debate the other night on the RTE telly?"

"I did not but I heard the who mans talking about it this morning when they came to give us some ration".

 "Dublin, Dublin, Dublin, Dublin..."

"Dat's all dem politicians talk about."

"If they give us all public transport here in West Cork  I would vote for dem".

"Oh look up in the sky.  There are pigs flying".

But seriously folk.  I will post a rock music post next.  I just wanted to give a few living in rural Ireland thoughts about the forthcoming Irish Election tomorrow:

There is a General Election here in Ireland on Friday.  Ireland and Malta are the only two  countries formerly British ruled that use Proportional Representation.  It is not: "First Past The Post" like countries like the UK use.  You put down your number one choice then your second and third choice and all down the list of candidates standing in your constituency.

Counting begins on Saturday morning and votes are counted and then they are transferred and eventually 3 TD's (MPs) will be elected in our Cork South- West constituency by Sunday evening.  It's supposed to prevent extremism and give a broader outlook of the political landscape. 

Traditionally when I lived in north west England I always supported Labour ("still do") but living in rural Ireland for over twenty years plus.  

I am also concerned about rural issues like the lack of public transport, rural isolation, the housing shortage and allowing people the right to build on their family land or buy and sell sites in the countryside, the future  for smallholdings, providing allotments and central government creating direct jobs and not relying on just the private sector or the volunteers to clean up the beaches.

 I am also concerned about defence.  Something which was not even mentioned in the television debate. You wou would not think a NATO member is so close to us and they could be involved a world war at any time.

Part of me says what is the point of voting when only the cities, towns and villages  get the infrastructure like public transport, street lighting, mains sewers, mobile libraries, mains water, bottle banks and pavements...?  

Will we rural dwellers get any of the above?  I doubt it. One becomes cynical and thinks that 21st century infrastructure in the countryside will never happen.  If we want tourism for the  like of hikers and campers on our beautiful Sheepshead and Wild Atlantic Ways we have got to put in public transport and make the roads safe for pedestrians and hikers and cyclists to use.  Roads built for  horses and carts and covered with tarmac and 80K speeds are not safe places to run, walk or cycle.

Sixty million Euros have been allocated in Ireland for the brilliant repurposed railway lines or Greenways since 2023 and our Golden Retriever Bronte and myself  have walked and featured on here.  

Imagine if a similar figure could be used to subsidise rural taxis and public transport (school buses/ private companies) for rural dwellers to get to the pub and shop and tour and work?   I am not sure I am going to vote for the status quo or more of the same tomorrow.

At least it's not like the Enclosures Acts in England between 1604 and 1914  when the Whigs and Tories took the common lands off the people and the poor moved to the big towns and cities started the Industrial Revolution and 1 percent of the population  still own fifty percent of the land and live in a unspoilt rural setting.   

Hopefully things can only get better.

Like my late uncle use to say:

"Time will tell".

Hopefully we will get some hope and a new government by Sunday night when all the votes have been counted and my constituency gets it's three TD's probably made up of 3 different parties?  I don't think any political party has held a overall majority since the nineteen seventies so it's highly probable that we will have another coalition party.  

I still don't know if I willing to travel to vote on Friday.   Would you?  Do you think there are things like amenities that you have to sacrifice when you live in the countryside? Like a pub or a shop or a bus to town?

This  blog post was written by a Anglo Irish smallholder who resides on a smallholding overlooking Bantry Bay in West Cork. I rarely get any Irish comments but I believe the diaspora around the world is 90 million are interested in tomorrow's general election.

You don't  need to have an Irish connection to leave a comment.  

Topping Up The Repurposed Raised Beds With Buckets Of Fym.

Back to one of my gardening posts.

 When ever we get a dryish day.  I get my trusty garden fork and go to the oldest fym pile and fill buckets of black gold.  

Then I go to my repurposed plastic oil tanks/raised beds and weed and top them up with well rotted fym:

Looking good.  I could/should cover it with a plastic tarp to prevent any weeds growing.  

I like the winter rains to work the ground and old Mr and Mrs Robin Redbreast can help themselves to a chunky worm breakfast if they  are cold and feeling peckish.

One bucket of fym in the raised bed.  

I dug and forked and filled and carried and spread ten buckets of fym for this raised repurposed bed.

I have at least twenty four raised vegetables beds.  Some are made with old wooden decking planks and some are old plastic baths, fish boxes and old heating oil tanks.

Now I am in my sixties and our autumns, winters  and springs are becoming wetter.  I believe raised beds work much better for drainage, deeper soil and you are gardening at least at knee height.

I often say it on here.  You don't have to have a garden or allotment to grow your own organic vegetables.  All you need is something to put your soil or fym and compost in.

Anyone else topping up their raised beds at the moment?

Corned Beef Toastie.

 What we had for our tea last night.

Corned Beef toastie.

I often get hundreds and hundreds of views when I write about food and some of our plain food recipes in particular.   

I some times see them for sale on Irish pub menus and usually they cost 6 Euros.  Why do I see so little traditional Irish food menus these days?  We should champion the foods our grandmothers and mothers made and cooked and fed us.

One anecdote about Irish food I will share with you.  I was once with my friend attending a folk festival in Doolin in County Clare.  We ordered two traditional Irish stews.  On finishing our meal, I said to the barman:

"I would like to pay for two Irish stews please".

He replied: "Were you hungry?"

We both laughed and I paid the man.

Corned beef or salted beef was introduced before fridges or electricity was invented.  

The English christened it Corned Beef after the salt crystals used to preserve the beef and a lot of the beef used for curing came from County Cork in particular. 

Fray Bentos built massive canning and beef salting factories on the Uruquay Argentina border.  It became the staple diet of many a soldier in ww1.  

In New York Irish immigrants would buy salted beef from Jewish butchers because it reminded them of the salted beef back in Ireland.

Corned beef is probably high in salt and preservatives and probably not very healthy for you.  But I like it and its always good to have a tin of it in the fridge.

J made our toasties in a toastie bag that you pop in the toaster.

Technology never ceases to amaze me.  They will be making roasting bags made from plastic soon and you put your roasting joint in them and cook your beef.

What they already have them?

Anyone else like corned beef toasties?

What traditional food do you like?  Shall we start the Plain Food Movement?

Here's a song to go with your corned beef toastie:

When The Stove Sparked Into Life.

 On Saturday morning I went to clean out the stove and noticed the solid fuel cinders were red and glistening at me.

I placed a log on top of the red cinders and closed the stove door.

I made myself a brew (ground  black "real" coffee) and sat down writinga blog and commenting on some I read every day.

It must have been half an hour later when suddenly shooting flames appeared in the stove.

This startled me and I am grateful that stoves have got metal doors with glass windows.

It is reassuring to know we can go to bed with the stove still lit and everything will be ok.

I am glad we don't have an open fire.

One good thing about living in the countryside means we can have a lit stove every night.  It's so much nicer than looking at a gas fire.

How do you keep warm at this time of year?

Feeding Rabbits During Storm Bert.

 It rained through Friday and well into Saturday morning.  I stayed in bed to mid morning reading blogs answering comments and seeing what storm Bert had been up to around Ireland.

J and number one son had gone up to Dublin on a Friday to stay in a hotel and attend a family funeral.

J had instructed me that there was a tin of soup for my dinner in the cupboard and told me to put it in the machine that goes "ping" for 2 minutes.

Reluctantly I went about my smallholding chores and fed the dogs, cats and then the livestock.   Fortunately they are all under cover but I still had to venture outside to get pig food from one shed and feed them.

Then it was the rabbits turn.  There was no way that I was going cutting vegetables leaves on the veg plot and getting saturated.  I had remembered to raid the bread cupboard and took half a loaf of sliced bread with me and squeezed in my anorak pocket.

The rabbits  came out of their sleeping quarters and I gave them the bread.  They devoured it and took no notice to the torrential rain.

I walked back inside the dwelling and lit the stove in the front room.  Then I went back to writing a blog for yesterday.  A couple of hours later I opened a tin of Heinz vegetable soup.  I call it " posh" soup because it's  got a ring pull and you need to use a tin opener to open it.

A few minutes later I had a lovely bowl of piping hot soup.  I went to the cupboard to get myself four slices of brown bread and realised I had given it to my RABBITS!  Flipping heck!

A Book Christmas Present Perhaps?

 One of my favourite television series creator, actor and writer was on television the other day:

He's had a book published about the great English folk singer Nick Drake coming to his house. It's titled: "If Nick Drake Came To My House".

If it is anything like "Detectorists" it will be excellent.  I think that series was the best television series the BBC ever made.  

It's my birthday in less than a fortnight.  I think I will leave some hints that I would like this book.  I looked at at it on Kindle this morning.  

Are you a fan of Nick Drake? He was only 26 when he died.  Sadly he never lived to get the recognition he deserved.

Which famous person would you like to meet? I think my hero would be a rock musician  and guitar hero Gary Moore.  I love Parisienne Walkways so much.

Here's Man In A Shed by the late and great Nick Drake:

I could write a song or poem entitled Man In A Polytunnel perhaps?

Smallholding And Site Gloves Tips.

 I mentioned on a comment yesterday to Linda (Local Alien) how my finger nails felt like they were dropping off when I was picking vegetable leaves to feed the rabbits.

Then I remembered this gloves tip I was shown when I worked once picking up wood and rubbish on a derelict hotel site here in West Cork.

Get yourself a pair of surgical/ disposable gloves and put your hands in them:

Disposable gloves.

Then put your work gloves on over them:

Your work gloves can get wet or cold but your disposable gloves will keep your hands warm and dry all day.

This morning I remembered my gloves and my hands were warm as toast picking the rabbits their breakfast.

Two layers gardening!

Still As A Mill Pond.

 I went for a five mile saunter the other day or even last week.  It was a lovely calm day and a enjoyable Autumn walk.  What a difference a weeks weather makes.

Up on the hills in between the two bays I took this photograph of Bantry Bay and Hungry Hill in the distance over on Beara peninsula.  

The bay was still like a mill pond.  It was like the lull before the storm.  Who would think the bay is part of the Atlantic Ocean?

If only the weather could be like its been last week?

The snow arrived in sleet like flurries this morning.    No doubt Ireland will get it's share this winter? 

Hungry Hill today took from my garden.

I hope it is not like 2010 when we got the heaviest snow fall for fifty years and we were snowed in for a fortnight.

It was good to have a walk on the hills.  I didn't see a soul and I didn't even play any music on my mobile phone.   I am fortunate to live where I can walk for miles on  the Sheepshead Way.  It's even better when you meet someone and have a chat.  I suppose it's  like blog writing.  You enjoy talking to strangers who are friends you haven't yet met?

Ireland is such a beautiful country when it is not raining or windy.

Mulligatawny Soup.

 

J found a tub of this soup in the "Specials" section in Lidl today.  They must be just selling for the run up to Christmas.

It is one of those soups that you place in the machine that goes "ping" for two minutes.

It wasn't bad.  I think I might have a go at making it from scratch some time.

Mulligatawny sounds like the name of a town in the West of Ireland.

Mulligatawny Soup could be the name of a prog rock group?

I have lit the stove and we have snow forecast for tonight and tomorrow.

It is definitely soup weather.

I think I will make some of my homegrown and homemade leek and potato soup tomorrow.  I could add some parsnip, onions and tomatoes?  🤔

Anyone else buying soup or even making it?

Have The Supermarkets Been Reading My Blog About Freezing Onions?

 We went Christmas shopping the other day before the world and the wife descend on the shops.

Remember back in September when I posted a blog about us slicing and chopping our organic home grown onion bags an placing them in small freezer bags and putting them in the freezer?

Well we noticed now Dunnes Stores are doing the same and selling them for a Euro.

We made a chilli last night and took a bag of our readily frozen chopped and sliced onions and placed them in the pan.

We are getting like M &S with our ready washed and chopped veg.

Do you freeze your home grown onions and vegetables?

Oriental Turkey Plates And Thinking What To Eat For Christmas Dinner.

 We washed our turkey old serving  plates I told you about on Sunday:

 

Willow Pattern.  They originate in China but a lot were made in the Potteries in Staffordshire in England.  Farmers and Industrialists realised the land had a lot of clay.  This was/is not ideal for growing vegetables but ideal for making pottery like our plates.  There was also no shortage of coal to heat the kilns.

This red one has Japan printed on the back.  On further online research this tells me it was made between 1921 and 1941 and made for the American market.  So it is at least 80 years old maybe an hundred.

Some of the blue willow pattern plates look very old.

If only they could speak?  I wonder how my Christmas turkeys have been served on these plates?

It's a shame we are not big Turkey eaters and we don't believe in leftovers  or Turkey sandwiches and Turkey  curry for days.  Any meat left over the dogs get it.  Any vegetables the pigs get it!

What are you having for your Christmas Dinner?  

We will probably have steak again and an all day hot and cold buffet.  We have even had a chilli and a curry one year.  Oh one year we made homemade pizza with a curry topping. 

Hope you like the plates?  I think I will sell them some time or get plate hangers for some of them and hang them on a wall.  If I can find some vacant wall space that is?

We placed them in sealed polythene bags and are resting back on top of a cupboard.  

I think I am a bit of treasure Womble or maybe a Jackdaw?😃 Perhaps I should live in a second hand shop? Only trouble is I wouldn't sell anything I liked.

Some Of Our Oriental Collectibles.

 GZ over at Ook blog feaured an Oriental box on her last post.

Here's some Oriental items we have collected over the years from flea markets, car boot sales and charity shops:

Very old Tea urn.

Geisha girls and my reflection.

Mount Fuji.

Oriental vases.

We also have 4 or 5 large willow pattern serving plates.  Big enough for a big chicken or Turkey.  They are very old.  I will dig them out some time and wash them and show them you.

Any one else collect Oriental items?

Tight Wad Tea Choice.

 Here's how I picked my tea for tonight.

We walked around Tesco and went to their Reduced Section.  Here's what I found and I made my meal choice by looking at the price label:

Stuck for a food idea for tea?  Have a trip to your supermarket and look in the Reduced section.

Do you go looking for food bargains?

The Deposit Return Scheme Seems To Have Been A Success.

 

Earlier this year the Irish Deposit Return Scheme was introduced into supermarkets and shops in Ireland.

Here's a receipt from the machines on one of our latest shopping trips:

The paper receipts can not be recycled I think because of the ink?

There are 13 EU countries participating in the Deposit Return Scheme. It's a pity that the UK chose Brexit and they could have participated in the re cycling scheme.

I wish someone would invent a machine for pet food cans, cooking oil plastic bottles and glass bottles.

Do you think there should be a Deposit Return Scheme introduced in other countries like the UK and the USA?

Warsaw Zoo Revisited.

I spent an half an hour looking at old photos I have posted on blogger since I began writing on here in 2010.  If you want inspiration for new post ideas look at your old blog posts.

Here is a fantastic photograph J took of a Siberian tiger eating Elderberries at Warsaw Zoo in 2013.  I think this is the third time I have shown the photograph on here.  I think it is fantastic:

 I will post another favourite photo or two another time.

November Garden Flowers On The Irish Riviera.

 It's been very mild weather here the last few days and the plants in the gardens seem to think winter is not on its way yet:

Geranium.

Hebe.

Myrtle.

Fuchsia.

Hypericum.

Surfinia.

Soapwort.

Shasta Daisy.

Bergenia.

Nasturtium.

Cape Daisy or Osteospernum.

The days and nights are getting colder but the plants keep putting on a show.

Is your garden flowers still performing?