A Day Out To The Aran Isles.

We went to Inishmor the other week for the day.  This was an early start because the ferry leaves for the Aran Isles at ten sharp.  We paid our thirty Euros (each!) for the hour and a quarter sail to the largest island in the Aran Isles.  Also the wife wanted to know what the Aran knitting patterns mean.  Like you do!

The sail was a bit choppy in places and we were freezing when we arrived at the pier.  After being asked by countless mini cab drivers if we wanted to pay fifteen Euros to go on the tour of the island.  We found a Spar and queued up for coffee and breakfast rolls.  

My wife being like most women.  Soon found herself engaged in a conversation with an American lady.  It went something like the following:

American Lady:

What's that you are ordering?

Wife:

A breakfast roll.

American Lady:

Whats in a breakfast roll?

The wife then explained the contents of the breakfast roll..  

Please!

A fed up donkey who didn't want to talk to me.  Perhaps he only spoke donkey Gaelic?

Some very brave tourists peering over the edge of the 300 foot cliffs.  I didn't look down!  

I did have a conversation with one of people who supervised the visitors.  I said there should be a fence put up.  He said:

"A few people have said the same".

There is no health and safety in Ireland.  Or very little.  It is a beautiful place to visit though.

Been A Long Time Since I Rock And Rolled Or Even Blogged For that Matter!

Well, well, well, my Michelle!  Yes its May since I last posted anything on the old Tweb and Tinternet gizmo, thingamajig..  I hope you're all well and I look forward to reading your blogs and comments.  So what have you been up to?  

We have been restoring the farmhouse (square pegs don't go into round holes, dial a nightmare..) and we spent some days in Kerry and visited the Aran Isles and I did go on a Ryan Air plane to Frankfurt Hahn and went to a rock festival in my fifties.  That's one off my bucket list for sure.

Our dream home in the Sun never came off.  The vendors wanted us to pay for electricity to be connected.  So after a month of negotiations (3 different prices in a day!) we decided to pull out and paid the solicitor 1500 Euros for very little really!  Any way we have spent the money doing up the old farmhouse now.  So we will have to think again.  Its still a dream though.  

Here's a German band called Eyevory from the festival at Night Of The Prog 2017. To quote Max Boyce:

"I know, I was there."

They reminded me of a female led Jethro Tull type of band.  I hope you enjoy them.  Thanks to the people who post these excellent videos on You Tube.

" Four Legs Good. Two Leg Bad." New Arrivals Down On The Smallholding.

We haven't had any livestock on the smallholding for a while.  Cattle prices are crazy at the moment. It's only a few days from the single farm payment application form-deadline.  So farmers are mad for cattle and sheep to make up their numbers before the 15th of May.  We decided to buy some sheep.  Five Suffolk cross ewes and six lambs to be precise.

Some photographs for the sheep.  You can see the bay (Bantry) in the background.

"I'm the king of the castle, bucket."

Makes you want to play "Sheep" by Pink Floyd doesn't it?

Weeding Thoughts?

Apparently the term "weed" has no botanical significance.  It's a plant in the wrong place.  I am lucky really that I have any pernicious weeds like Japanese Knot-weed or Ground Elder.  Both introduced from foreign shores.  Apparently Mr and Mrs Roman Empire are said to have introduced Ground Elder to northern Britain because there weren't much fresh greens in those days, yawn!  

Japanese Knot-weed is said to have come with the Rhododendrons from Asia and purposely planted in the sixties for ornamental purposes.  The Edwardians planted it for game cover.  Is there an organic cure to eradicate it?  I have even read that it can be fed to livestock.  Don't fancy it though, do you? We are just troubled with Montbretia, Creeping Buttercup, Brambles, Chickweed, Docks...?

I have been weeding with hand, bucket and trowel all week, weeding the paths and flower and veg gardens.  I was wondering  (weeding) if somebody could invent an organic spray weedkiller?  

Do you use weedkiller?  We some times spray the rushes in the fields.  But we wouldn't use chemicals near the veg plot. I have read that Glyphosphates are rendered harmless when they make contact with the soil, but I don't like them do you?

We don't use weed killers.  Not even on the paths around the houses.  I know the Victorian  gardeners at Heligan use to spread  and sweep sand on to the paths.  The sea salt kept the weeds away.  

I have read about vinegar being used for a natural weedkiller.  A lot of the commercial vegetable growers use weedkillers.  I was once in a farm centre in West Cork and a man asked for weedkiller to put on the weeds on his potato rows.  Would you use weed killer?  Am I being paranoid and could I be saving myself a lot of work?  

Please share your thoughts on using weed killers.  

In the words of Mrs Merton:  "Lets have a heated debate!"

Seriously: what do you think about using weedkiller?

A Bank Holiday Monday Trip To Valentia Island County Kerry.

Hi every body.  We went to Valentia Island in Kerry yesterday.  It was a lovely day with a lovely South Westerly breeze from the Gulf stream.  

We found the Tetrapod trackway and walked down the steep stone stone slope to the find the tracks.  They only discovered them in 1992.  

 Tetra Pod tracks.  Its said to have existed about 300 Million Years a go.  It could also have happened when Noah built his ark ("the animals came in two by two") and Mr or Mrs Tetra-pod was said to be only about a Metre long.  It's said to be the first creature that walked on Earth.  Instead of being fish the creature was a mammal.  Charles Darwin would have loved this place.  I still like to think God made the Earth in 7 days though.  

 Dinosaur view.

 The tail and the leg tracks - probably!

An incredible thatched house with butterflies and Fuchsia painted on the walls.  I love this house don't you?

Did you go any where?

Potato Eyes A Clean Poly-tunnel And A Very Friendly Lion Called Parsley.

 Remember when I planted the potato eyes/skins a few weeks a go?

 This is them now roaring to go and be planted out side.

 Some onions and peas we planted at the same time.

Finally tidied up all the plant pots and made myself a potting area.  Complete with deck chair and cheap compost from one of the cheap German supermarkets - my garden centre!  I have been splitting up many perennial plants and making lots more.

We have also been weeding all week.  Kneeling down and looking like we are praying to the great weed god.  People with a bit of sense would use weedkiller but not me.

Do you remember this song?

A Day Out On The Slea Head.

We went to Dingle on Friday afternoon in County Kerry, Ireland.  It was its usual bustling tourist spot.  It reminds me of Cornwall but yet it's still got its own unique feel about it.  We heard many different accents (English, Irish, German, American) and an elderly American lady came in the chip shop ("chipper") and asked if they sold 'fresh' fish.  I treated the missus, number two son and myself to a bag of chips each.  Well you have to splash out sometimes.   

We then went for a drive along the incredible Slea Head Drive.  The scenery is stunning and it's been used in films like: 'Far and Away' and 'Ryan's Daughter'.  

We saw lots of quaint cottages, holiday bungalows, ancient Beehive huts and stopped at The Slea Head Famine Cottages.  See pictures below.

 Beehive Hut.  These ancient dry stone walls structures are round like a bee hive and used from ancient times to 1200 AD.  

 A Thatched farm house.

 A cement mixer having a day off and looking at the stunning scenery.

 The Beehive Hut in the background.  Brambles are busy camouflaging this building.

 A mannequin farmers wife. 

 Same house/picture.  From a distance.

 The stable for the donkey and cattle.

Ancient treadle powered sewing machine


Ireland is an incredible beautiful country.  The Dingle Peninsula is the most Western point of Europe.  If you ever want to see some incredible beautiful scenery.  I would recommend you visit Ireland.