Heavy Jazz.

 I found a new version of 'Paranoid' by a band called Jazz Sabbath.

The pianist is Adam Wakeman (son of Rick who I saw play keyboards with his dad) and the English Rock Ensemble at Cropredy music festival last August in Banbury in Oxfordshire.

They played all of The Journey To The Centre Of The Earth.  They finished with a twenty seven minutes encore of  the Yes song: 'Starship Trooper'.  It was a very memorable performance  from the caped crusader, his son and his band.  Please check it out on good old YouTube.

'Paranoid' by Black Sabbath is 55 years old this year and went to number 4 in the UK music charts.

Regular blog readers will know I love my prog rock music.  

Jazz music 🎷 🎶  is said to be a big prog influence and a lot of future prog band members played in jazz bands.  People like Rick Wakeman and Ian Anderson to name a couple of them.

Any way.  Enjoy the following tune.  I think I could regular visit a jazz club if there was one near me.  Especially if they played some prog.

Adam also plays keyboards some times for Black Sabbath.

I read somewhere that London had 100 jazz and folk clubs in the nineteen sixties and you could go to a concert every night of the week if you wanted.  

Back in the days when you could catch a bus to town, drink 10 pints, watch a band and you still had change out of a tenner for a chippy supper and the bus ride home.😀

You wouldn't  need to carry a load of amplifiers either.  That's  my thought.😄

Time To Harvest The Japanese Winter Onions.

 We seem to grow more Alliums than any other vegetable.  All year round we have onions growing.

In Spring we plant Summer onion sets.  In September we plant Japanese Winter onions.

We also grow leeks.  These are very enjoyable especially in Winter when we make potato and leek soup.

Yesterday I harvested one of my Japanese onions 🌰:

Nice and fresh.

I have a lot of leeks and onions and I must think of some recipes especially to use up the leeks.

I have blogged on here before about making onion 🍕 pizza.  I wonder if I could make a leek pizza?

Jubbly Time For Heidi.

 It's thirsty work and a  👧 girl needs her refreshment.

A four sided  frozen tetrahedral iced lolly or jubbly for short.

Heidi is quite content to stand there licking if someone holds it for her.

She says ice lollies 🍭 and jubblys are not paw friendly.

It's still not rained here and I am watering my plants and vegetables every second day.  

Living in the Emerald Isle I never thought we would be hoping for some much needed rain.

I suppose when it starts it will never stop?

Tightwad Fish Supper Treat.

 Half a 🐟  and a bag of chips 🍟. 

It could be the name of a Prog Rock band 🎶 ✨️. 🤔

I treated J and me, myself and I to a slap up chippy tea on Friday night.

However being a tight wad smallholder.  I asked J to go and buy us one portion of fish and chips to share between us.

We unwrapped our fish supper and cut the fish in half with a knife.  The meal was very filling and we both said we couldn't possibly eat a full portion.

I am not a fish eater except occasionally for the battered ones you get in England chippies or a chipper like they call it in Ireland.

In Scotland they cook Mars Bars in batter.

Remember this?

More Scenes From A West Cork Veg Plot.

The lovely weather is making the vegetables grow verdant at the moment. 

Here are some latest photos for your perusal:

Spinach growing in a repurposed IBC tank.

Globe Artichoke growing in a old tractor tyre.  I grew the veg plant from seed last year and it's a perennial that let's you divide it.

Japanese or winter onions planted last September. 

I have earthed up my first early potatoes 🥔.  They should be ready in a few weeks for digging up and eating. 

More spudatoes. 

Perennials filling up a groaning with  plants bench or even an old table from in the kitchen. 

Celery.  I cut this back severely and divided it into more plants.  They are growing well and loving it growing in the soil and compost filled repurposed plastic oil tanks.

More Summer onions 🌰 growing in repurposed oil tanks.  

Repurposed tanks and baths.  I won't need to replace them unlike my wooden plank raised beds.

The brand new veg plot extension where the lawn use to be.  No repurposed plastic baths or heating oil tanks in this plot.

Hope you like the veg plot photos 📸 📷?

British-American Neo- Medieval Folk Rock On A Friday.

 Why do they make these music genres?  What's wrong with prog or folk-rock?

I have been a fan of Rainbow for a long while.  No I don't mean the ITV children's programme with Bungle and Zippy. 

 My late friend who I told you about us feeding the Polar bears at Belle Vue Zoo in Manchester with our home made sandwiches many moons ago.  Complete with salt and pepper.

His dad used to rush and drive home home from work every dinner time to watch the programme.  I jest not.😀

No I am talking about the heavy rock band with Graham Bonnet and Ritchie Blackmore and later the great and late Ronnie James Dio.

I was fortunate enough to see Ronnie and his band Dio in 1987 at The Monsters Of Rock Music Festival in 1987. I repeat myself when I am stressed. 😀

Any way or any road.  Ritchie Blackmore formed Blackmores Night with Candice Night who is now Ritchie's wife.

Ritchie was also in Deep Purple and he is now 80.

I have followed Blackmores Night from a far for several years.  Mainly through good old YouTube.

If they were to tour West Cork and play Bantry, Drimoleague or even Dunmanway.  I would buy tickets.  

They play renaissance medieval folk/heavy rock.

Here's a cover of a old Rainbow song.  Enjoy:

Ps.  They are playing a few gigs in the US in aid of animals charities.  Do your best please Debby and other cross the pond bloggers to support and see them!

Muzzmuss Presents Us With One Little Kitten.

 Remember when I showed you how our dogeens ate the couch?

You do.  Good.  This morning J woke up and I went out doing my plant and vegetables watering duties.  She made us a brew and sat down and heard a kitten  miaowing like a new born baby:

A new puddy 🐈. 

Isn't she lovely?

Muzzmuss had curled into a hole in the dog chewed couch and give birth to a beautiful black and white 😸.  

There's always summat being born or dying on a smallholding.

Lost In Translation In Dingle.

 "Scuse me love.  Can I have two francobollo please?"

Stamps for sale sign.

Do people buy and write postcards and put stamps on them?

I find it easier to  take a photo on WhatsApp or my mobile phone and email it or post it on my blog.

Old Robert Zimmerman was right when he sang:  "The times are a-changing".

Bronte The Dog Comedian In A Lidl Car Park.

 We left Bronte in the van whilst we did our shopping in Lidl.  She decided to move about and set the alarm off a few times.  This is a regular game when we go shopping. 

Bronte dressed like an Irish Colleen.

On return I let Bronte out to stretch her legs and have a drink of water  and for us to put our shopping away.   Bronte jumped out of the van and jumped up and pawed me in the midriff.

J started laughing and so did an elderly lady watching us.  I half grimaced and laughed at the same time.  

Isn't that the definition of good comedy? Somebody's down fall! 

Laugh.  😅  I nearly got my cigs out!

Old joke:

" Does your wife smoke in bed?"

"No.  But she sweats a lot!"

Drive To Dingle.

 They say in Ireland you go or drive to Dingle.  You don't drive through it.

It's a coastal town in County Kerry that we have visited so many times.  Like Killarney it's always full of the world and his wife.

Everywhere is painted up and the locals seem to put their hard earned takings back into the town. 

I would say County Kerry is my adopted Irish county and I love the place.

Dingle reminds me so much of a Cornish seaside town or village like Polperro.  Here's some photos:

Dingle Harbour.

Fungie statue

Self explanatory really.

Idyllic old Kerry coach trip poster.

Bohdran playing busker 

The signs made me smile.

Hope you liked the photos?👍

Killorglin Train Station Diaspora Lady Monument.

An Irish emigrant with all her worldly possessions packed into cardboard suitcases. Carved from an ancient and rotten oak tree that grew in the grounds of Killorglin train station in County Kerry.

She and thousands of others left Ireland for the train that took them to Queenstown (Cobh) to board a ship to the America and the new world and England like my dad did in the "Black Fifties" when he was just seventeen.

Old train station. FEXCO now use the old building for their business headquarters.

Talented artists.

Monument to someone who drowned in Castlemaine bay trying to save some one.

 Bronte having her dinner with us at a picnic bench in a petrol station forecourt. 

Puck goat mural.  I have featured the world famous Killorglin  Puck Fair on here before. 

What Do You Do When Your Ballcock Flapper Valve Doesn't Work? The Joys Of Rural Living Part 106.

 Things always seem to go wrong after tea when everywhere is closed or on a Sunday when you can't get anything to do  a smallholding fence fix,or DIY emergency like a water pipe connection.

You can't even get a can of beer before half twelve in Ireland on a Sunday.  None of your seven to eleven licensing hours like they have in dear old Blighty 🍺🍺.  Oh for Sainsburys to move to West Cork with my beloved  Newcy Brown.

On Thursday night J said there was no water coming into our humble commode/abode.

So I looked in the pump house and the light was still working on the pump on the well.

So I turned on the outside water tap and the water gushed out.  My watering the gardens and plants everyday with the hosepipe sprinkler hadn't made us run out of well water.  Oh well!😊

I walked into the hall and took out the hook thingamajig that you hook into the attic stairs cover in the ceiling.

After a few unsuccessful attempts to hook it and pull down the attic stair 🪜.   Not to mention several swear words of an Anglo Saxon derivation.  I managed to pull the stairs down.

I proceeded to climb the ladder and fumbled around in the dark to find the electric light switch.

J went to put the torch on her mobile phone while I somehow found the switch: "Let there be light".

I looked into the empty water tank and there was black gunge in the bottom.

Old ballcock was stuck up in the air.  I shouted down: " I am not a plumber but.."

I pushed the ballcock down and water began to fill up the tank.

I told J to turn on the bath taps and flush the toilet and black water entered the toilet and down the bath sink hole.  I think it needs a good flushing of the system.  You can't beat a bit of manganese in your well water can you?

Then we left it to fill up again and it seems the job is a good un👍.  

That's good coming from me who thinks " If in doubt give it a clout."

I'm a jack of all trades and master of none!😀

Japanese Onions And Kofta Kebabs.

 You know it's getting hot when you hear people say:  

"Is it hot or is it me?"

Also we seem to don't know what to have for our tea.

We had a salad the other night and I was starving watching the snooker ("Go on Wonnie!")  and I had to get myself a couple of packets of salt and vinegar crisps.

Yesterday J sent me aWhatsApp text message with the following picture:

Lidl Kofta kebabs.

"Will they be spicy?"  

"I dunno!"

"Shall we try em with some salad and my home grown Japanese onions?"

My home grown Japanese 🌰 🌰.

"If you want".

That was our tea sorted.  I had some of my hot spicy sauce with mine:

I have never bought an hot 🔥 🥵 and spicy kebab here in Ireland.

Growing up in Blighty you could get: mild, medium and hot kebabs.

One excellent kebab house in Kent put whole green chillies on top of your doner.

Do you like hot and spicy food?

Verdict:  It was OK 👍  but not hot and spicy for old asbestos mouth.😀

The Darling Buds Of May In West Cork.

Osteospermums or Cape Daisies. 

A miniature rose from Lidl.

Scented Geranium.

Broad Bean.

London Pride or Saxifrage.  It grows wild here in Ireland.

Chives about to flower.

Iris.

Ice plant.  I have seen them growing on the clifftops in the Algarve. 

Valerian.

 Grandma's Bonnets.  They come back every year.  I think my Grandma must have sown them.

The weather's been remarkable and I can't remember a Spring so nice.

There are supposed to be thundery showers this afternoon.  I am watering with the sprinkler every day at the moment.

It looks like it's going to be a wonderful bank holiday weekend.

Pleasant Growing Days.

 It's the darling buds of May in April this week.  The veg plots and gardens are loving it:

The new veg plot extension where the lawn was.

On the right hand of the plot I have planted shrubs and perennials that I propagated myself.  

There are phormiums, Shasta Daisies, Geraniums, Roses, Fuchsia, Pheasant Berry, Hydrangeas, Hebes and Hydrangeas..  It's  pleasing to know that I can grow plants 🪴 without buying them.  Not forgetting Mother Nature's help of course.  

No sign of repurposed oil tanks or second hand baths yet!  There are more potatoes 🥔 and other vegetables on the left.

My perennials and shrubs carboot sale nursery and potatoes 🥔 growing at the top of the picture. You can also see my big pile of fym covered up with black plastic. 

We sold my polytunnel frame and are going to make a glass house/potting shed/writing/reading/supping room.

I turn on my oscillating hosepipe sprinkler four times a day.  I turn off the tap and move the hosepipe to its  next watering position.  It was a brilliant investment for 4 Euros for the plastic sprinkler from Dealz or Poundland in England.

It must be the best Spring I have known in Ireland this year.  After four years of record breaking winter rainfall.  It's about time the weather picked up.

Leeks And Onions Growing In Their Second Hand Repurposed Beds.

 

Leeks and Japanese onions after I hand weeded them yesterday.

Once again my repurposed baths and plastic oil tanks prove to me that you do not need to have a veg plot or allotment to grow your veggies.  All you need is a container to grow them in.  You could even grow them on concrete?  

Don't worry about allotment  waiting lists.  Get yourself some second hand plastic oil tanks or baths!

They are flying it with mixed sunny and rainy April weather plus constant hand weeding and liberal top dressing them with the pelleted chicken manure.

Some of the leeks look they are about to grow flower heads and go to seed.  I could let them and collect the seed to sow next year.  But I won't I will buy some.

Any one got any good leek recipes please?  We have made lots of potato and leek soup this year:

Leek and potatoes soup with homemade soda 🍞.