We travelled two and half hours to county Limerick to a carboot sale on Saturday morning.
It was trying to rain and most booters decided to walk backwards and forwards carrying their wares inside a community hall.
We decided to be brave and decided to empty the van and tough it out.
One woman asked me if I would sell a print painting with a neatly carved frame for 3 Euros? I said that I wanted 5 Euros at least and the frame was worth that. The lady said it wasn't worth it would take a lot of cleaning and walked away.
Carbooting reminds me of my old coarse fishing days. Sometimes you catch and some times you don't.
A cheerful man asked me how much my plants were and I told him what species they were and their price. The man bought four off me for twenty Euros. I gave him a plant for free. He was really made up and patted me on my back.
That's all we made: 20 Euros. Then I paid the carboot lady organiser 12 Euros for our pitch and we were left with 8 Euros!
What a waste of time. Perhaps we has tried selling to early in the year?
I won't be going there again.
Last year at a carboot sale a fellow booter told me had done a carboot once and never sold a thing and he paid ten pounds to sit in a carpark for the morning.😄
An old homestead dwelling not resided in since the Great Famine.
This is one of the old ruins that I often walk past and think about on my hill walks near where we live.
I have read there are over 110,000 derelict properties here in Ireland. If you look on Daftie you will see properties in places like county Kerry for 50000 Euros or less.
There is a empty houses government grant of up to sixty thousand Euros to renovate such properties. Some councils do not always give planning permission especially if the property is isolated and there is no infrastructure like a council road to the property.
I have also read that the owners of some of the ruins emigrated overseas and died and no one knows who owns the properties.
I think it's sad when I see old buildings fall into disarray and get covered in Ivy and the gales demolish them for ever. Ashes to ashes, dust to dust.
In my almost a quarter of a century living in rural Ireland I have seen parts of the building in the photo disappear.
'Empty Rooms" by the great Gary Moore plays on my mental jukebox when I think of such derelict and unloved properties that people once called home.
I filled up the repurposed oil tank this morning with fym and home-made compost and topsoil.
Then I went weeding and forking over the raised beds made from planks, old tractor tyres, fish boxes, plastic baths and old heating oil tanks.
IBC tanks.
Old barrel.
Old plastic baths.
The long bed is made out of old decking planks.
The corridor of raised beds.
Plank raised beds with Japanese onions 🌰 growing in them.
Even more raised beds.
The long raised bed. We grew tomatoes there last year and peas.
Old Ford 3000 tractor tyres.
I finished my gardening at 3 o'clock this afternoon. It had just begun to rain. I counted 45 raised beds including the fish boxes and tyres planters.
Apart from moving a lot of perennials in the polytunnel and taking up the black plastic tarpaulin and digging it over for new potatoes and adding seaweed and fym. That's my winter veg work done and ready for the planting season.
Number two son drilled me some drainage holes in half a old plastic heating oil tank.
Half an heating oil tank. Drilled for drainage and put into place in the veg plot.
Once again I will practice the German Hugelkultur gardening method and half fill it with shrub prunings and fresh fym. Then I will fill the top half with well rotten fym, compost and topsoil.
Soon they will be raised beds like the ones below.
Old IBC tanks cut in half and planted with leeks. We love our homegrown potato and leek soup.
Old plastic baths repurposed and used for growing vegetables.
More cut in half heating oil tanks and a bath.
Raised beds are great for drainage and the soil is at least at knee height. Some are at waist height. This is very good for people with bad backs and none of us are getting any younger are we?
Once again may I add that my repurposed raised beds are suitable for anywhere. You could even grow vegetables on concrete. Don't worry about not having a garden or allotment. Get yourself some repurposed oil tanks and old plastic baths.
This Brussel Sprout plant is having babies. How strange?
They are only 89 Cents in Lidl this week. They won't be a patch on our homegrown and organic Brussel Sprouts.
All they have had for fertilizer is fym and the recent frosts will have converted the starches into sugars.
There's not a lot to harvest from the veg at the moment apart from an abundance of leeks and the Brussel Sprouts.
The two chest freezers are still groaning with home produced vegetables and bacon and pork.
I intend to buy some compost this week and start sowing some veg seeds and I always start my onion sets off in module trays. Its much better than planting them in wet and cold soil.
Anyone else starting sowing seeds yet? Are you still harvesting your winter vegetables?
Scruffy the Maine Coon cat lying in front of the stove. Little Cat 🐈 the new Maine Coon plays on the firewood. You can also see my empty pint glass. I like a few cans on a weekend night.
Maine Coon are an American breed. The grow really large and so is the price they fetch to purchase. You can pay 700 Pounds/Euros for one. I jest not!
The two Maine Coons are lady cats and hopefully we will breed them.
We also have five other cats. These are Heinz 57 varieties like myself. They are neutered and earn their keep hunting the rats 🐀 mice and sometimes birds 🐦 sadly.
I have always been a dog 🐕 kind of pet owner. But in recent years cats definitely appeal.
I could never live in a house without animals. Like I couldn't live somewhere without vegetables, plants and a garden.
We went for a walk again on the jewel in County Limericks crown: The Limerick Greenway on Sunday.
It cost over 20 million Euros and it is 40 KM long. Stretching from Abbeyfeale to Rathkeale.
You can also walk from Abbeyfeale to Listowel in County Kerry. I will save that for another blog post and walk with Bronte my hiking Golden Retriever. In fact dear readers there are repurposed railway lines or Greenways popping up all over Ireland at the moment. There are new walking routes being planned down here in West Cork.
We set off this time from Barnagh. I last wrote about Barnagh and its tunnel last July. Remember the light that automatically came on in the tunnel and we thought we saw a ghost like lady figure in the stone face?
We followed a sign for Barnagh Viewing Point. About quarter of a mile later we arrived at the side of a very busy fenced off road. Behind us was a sign for the viewing point:
We could see for literally miles. Thomand Park home of Munster 🏉, Counties Clare, Cork and Tipperary.
I looked for a sign for Newcastle West. There was no way we would try to cross the fenced off road. So we turned back and a nice young man and lady advised me to walk back to the station and through the tunnel and under a road viaduct (subway) and we would be on the other side of the road. If we had walked from the Abbeyfeale direction we would have seen the Newcastle West signpost. But J had dropped us off higher up.
Twenty minutes later we had walked about a mile and we were opposite where J had dropped us off. Five or ten minutes later we could see the viewing point across the road. If only there had been a sign to point to Newcastle West.🤔
Ten Kilometres or six miles in old gas slot meters was our walking distance on Sunday morning. Already we had put a mile on our saunter.
The train line must have gone across where the busy road is now. It was very noisy for about ten minutes and Bronte was not an happy bunny or Golden Retriever. I didn't particularly like the speeding cars myself.
Soon the Greenway led us into a much more pleasant rural setting and we passed cyclists, runners, walkers and young children trying to learn from very patient parents "how" to ride their bicycles.
Where else was there a tarmac path/ road where people exercise safely and greet each other with: " Morning", "Hi" and ''How ya doing?" It's definitely 20 million Euros well spent on 40 kilometres of public greenway. Not forgetting the chats and greetings with other people exercising for free.
Regular readers know I reside next to The Sheepshead Way and the views and vistas are spectacular. Read Seamus Heaney's The Peninsula poem if you want inspiration. I love walking it in the summer. It's hilly and not the gentle terrain of an old railway line. Also I rarely if ever meet people to chat or see here.
Also on the Limerick Greenway there are public transport connections. On my side of our peninsula there is little or no public transport other than the Local Link on a Tuesday and a Thursday. Although on the south side there are now 4 buses a day. You can even catch a bus from Kilcrohane to Allhies over on Beara. We definitely need more public transport infrastructure down here. It's not just a matter of reducing the speed limits which I agree with the recent new road signs. People like country dwellers and hikers need public transport for shopping and to get home from the rural pub or village..
Here's so more photos for your perusal:
Bronte waiting patiently at a natural fence. Old branches lay down and weaved in between the posts. Very clever!
Please click on the photos to enlarge them! There's some interesting town land place names.
Old house looking sad and lonely.
Bronte stopped at a picnic bench. We ate a packet of Aldi salt and vinegar chopsticks. We didn't see any litter bins but we didn't see any litter in fairness.
Cattle probably bulls or bullocks with horns over wintering on the Rush pasture.
Bronte leads the way.
Old train station converted into a dwelling.
Old signal
Looks like an old goods yard now a modern housing estate.
5000 fine if you don't pick it up.
It was a lovely February day and the gorse was in flower and perfect for a walk with my four legged friend Bronte. Only 14 Kilometres more and we have walked the Limerick Greenway. I wouldn't mind an electric bike with a bell to warn hikers and runners I am passing them.
This track began to play on my mental jukebox:
I think the Greenways are an excellent way of enjoying Ireland's industrial railways and rural routes and they pass through villages and towns en route which are perfect for refreshment or hotel and air bnb accommodation. I would like to see a few more portaloos, litter bins, burger/ tea and coffee cold drinks vans or cafes and maybe a bunkhouse in one of the old railway buildings or a campsite or two on a farmers fields adjoining the Greenway.
Limerick Greenway is very accessible from Kerry airport overseas readers.
Not forgetting the EU subsiding of so many of the Greenways in Ireland.
The bread is too wide to fit in the toastie bag. That's J's little hand.
We went shopping in Aldi on Saturday looking for a tin of corned beef to make corned beef toasties for our tea. We couldn't find it anywhere in the tins section.🤔
J asked a member of staff where was the tins of corned beef? She said that it was only available when it was on special offer.
What is the world coming to?
You can no longer buy English 🍺. Yet the shelves are full of beers from all over Europe and you can't get a delicacy like a tin of corned beef?
Should I blame the disaster they called Brexit? Five years this week! Even Nigel Farage says it was a failure!
We eventually found a packet of smoked 🥓 bacon and I bought a few cans of Guinness.
We didn't attempt to operate the "self service" tills after our last shopping adventure/nightmare if you recall?
It's quicker to queue up and get served by a 'real' person than having to get another 'real' person to assist you serve yourself.
"Welcome To The Machine" (Pink Floyd) began to play in my mental jukebox at the thought of the shopping nightmare.
Back at home. We decided to make toasties and had to force the bread into the toaster bag.
Why do they make them so small? Are we living in Liliput? Gullibles Shopping Travels perhaps? Perhaps they are made in China?
I have been busy doing some grafting for a builder again this week. 61 years old and a building labourer/gardener. Very reasonable rates.
Hopefully I will get some of my own jobs done over the St Brigids Bank Holiday. I might go carbooting but plants don't usually sell in winter.
Only Ireland could have a holiday weekend in February.
Any road:
Remember round Christmas time when I did a post about Thomas Hardy's Oxen kneeling at the Nativity post?
Recently I was reading Chapter 17 of Tess of the Durbevilles and Dairyman Crick told the gathered milking dairy men and milk maids the tale of fiddler old William Dewy played at a wedding on a Saturday night.
The riddles and dances went on all night and William was tired and it was a moon lit night so he decided to take a short cut over a farmers field. Suddenly a huge bull came charging and chasing after him.
William Dewy was brought up in the countryside and he knew there was no way he would out run a bull.
So he began to play his fiddle and the bull stopped and listened and his face was perplexed and full of curiosity.
Then the fiddler had an idea and he played a Nativity hymn and it was not even Christmas. Rather like the Christmas Eve oxen. The bull stopped and reverently kneeled for a moment.
William Dewy took the opportunity to leap over the fence and escape from the Christian bull! He had managed to trick the bull.
Dairyman Crick said back in medieval times people believed in a real living faith.
Anyone else read Tess or seen the films? Do you think Thomas Hardy was a fatalist? Should Tess have had a more happy ending,
Thomas Hardy definitely could write classic English literature.
Now " Portugal 🇵🇹 " my beloved polytunnel is to use a golf course term: GUR. I am taking my seed sowing adventures back to what use to be a bedroom.
Regular readers will recall we used this little box room last year to chit a 55 Kg hessian sack of Homeguard potatoes 🥔.
We enjoyed them very much. Particularly Diesel our Bernese mountain dog. She loves eating them with her Yorkshire Puddings.
So now tiz the season to start collecting our seeds from the German garden centre and beer providers and supermarket in Bantry town
We've made a start collecting our vegetables seeds.
I must purchase some seed compost. But none of that cheap stuff that's made of composted bark and peat.
A good John Innes number 3 type of loam soil based compost full of nutrients and nice to work with your fingers. The better the compost the better your veg plants grow.
It's a tad bit early to start germinating seeds but I am very very tempted. Nothing gladdens the heart more that some tender seedlings 🌱 growing in a potting tray during gale season.
Anyone else collecting or even started sowing their vegetables seeds yet?
J picked it up from our local German garden centre and beer providers and supermarket the other day.
Yesterday I spent an hour feeding the rabbits and weeding some of my new rooted shrub cutting and divided perennials. I couldn't find my gardening gloves and used my bare fingers instead. They felt like they were dropping off.
I decided to make some warm soup but I couldn't be mithered ( northern English word) getting my trusty garden fork and digging up one of my leeks.
Instead I made soup out of a packet. I often get accused that when I cook every pot, pan and utensil is used. This is not strictly true. I don't use everything.
So what was your packet soup like Dave? I will show you:
Packet soup.
It made us warm and reminded me of that stuff they served in Littlewoods stores cafes over in dear old Blighty.
The ones that my mum and dad always insisted we went in when going clothes shopping in C and A on city visits to places like Manchester and Chester.
If you are a Wayne or Waynetta kind of person I would say it would do. However if you are an organic vegetable gardener like me I would go and dig up a leek and make your own. In fairness if you were in a hurry the packet soup would suffice! At least it warmed me up!
Anyone else voting for putting packet soup in room 101 with hoovers and hair dryers?
I sold and planted one hundred and twenty five of my hedging last Autumn.
I decided to replace them with about two hundred cuttings that I placed in secondhand plant pots filled with home-made compost and soil.
Yesterday I decided to place the newly rooted plants outside in one of my plant nurseries on the veg plot:
New Griselina hedging plants.
I will let them grow a bit and try to sell them off at carboot sales during the spring and summer. I often find places to plant new hedges around the gardens here.
The best thing about growing them in pots means that you can plant them unlike bare rooted hedging which can only be planted when they are dormant until the end of March.
Anyone else grow hedging or perennials and shrubs for an hobby? I also grow vegetables but being a plantaholic I seem to always be making plants.
I wish I could get a job in a plant nursery or at a big house. It's rare to see such gardener jobs these days.
I would love to have worked in the walled kitchen gardens at Heligan in Cornwall. It's 26 years since I last visited them. I am also hoping to visit them again and The Eden Project in late summer. I have never visited there, have you?
Update:
I have just come inside after weeding my potted shrub cuttings. My fingers were dropping off with the cold. The Spanish weather people have declared our next storm Su to hit the Emerald Isle on Sunday is called Storm Herminia. At least it's not a red warning this time.
I managed for years without a polytunnel but I will miss it especially on rainy days
Perhaps I should buy polycarbonate plastic sheeting? Polytunnel polythene can not stand the Atlantic storms which seem to be getting worse every year.
We still have electricity and Mr Musk's brilliant Starlink satellite Internet service. I wonder if he would give us a few grand for the free advert and I will replace my polytunnel cover? I need to find another 900 Euros.
I spent a couple of hours yesterday potting on some laurel hedge cuttings I took in the Autumn:
You can see the white roots poking under the plant pot. I used just ordinary sand left over from a DIY project. You can also see my wellingtons!
I potted them on into my second hand plant filled with home-made compost.
I potted on 28 plants in total.
They would easily suffice for a thirty foot long hedge. I cut back a laurel hedge in Autumn and bagged up some of the cuttings.
Interestingly Laurel contains cyanide and can be toxic to livestock.
I have read of people taking laurel trimmings to their local tip in the back of their cars and complained of nasty headaches. No doubt from the plants releasing their cyanide fumes.
Like the old estate gardeners stories I have read in old gardening books. You can make your plants for free.
I will either plant my hedging or sell them at a carboot sale.
I hope Storm Eowyn shows mercy on our polytunnels, greenhouses and sheds tonight and tomorrow.