Doolin Folk Festival Part Two. Katie Theasby Smiled At Me!

My favourite turn (act) from Doolin Folk Festival was Katie Theasby.  I mentioned her before in a blog post post in March.  This was when I posted her You Tube video of the Finbar Furey song:  I Remember You Singing This Song.  

Any road or any way.  I got there early on Sunday afternoon before the biblical multitudes arrived and filled the new "Barn " building.  Katie Theasby and her band carried out a sound check and sung a song or three.  Then she was introduced and gave a wonderful performance.  She sang: I Remember You Singing This Song twice during her set.

It was Fathers Day and I was feeling tired and emotional and I had just watched the great Cork songwriter Jimmy Crowley upstairs on the White Horse stage.  He had been singing and talking about what really matters like family, home, God and beauty and a myriad of other things.  Well Katie singing I Remember You Singing This Song made me start to shed a tear or three I started to cough and wiped my eyes.  

Here's some photographs.

After the concert.  My old friend and me were having a pint of the black-stuff and Katie Theasby walked through the bar and I pointed (shouldn't point Dave) my finger at her.  Katie smiled back at us both.  I hope she makes it big, she deserves it!

Here she is singing the Bob Marley classic: Redemption Song.  The last picture is Katie playing tin whistle on this song.

Back From Doolin Folk Festival And A Walking and Public Transport Tour of Hardy Country.

Hows it going?   I have been to Blighty for a week and to Doolin for nearly five days.  We spent one night in a hotel near Bristol airport.  And the other ten roughing it in tents.  I felt like I was a posh tramp.  Here's some photos from Doolin for you.    You would think it never rained going off the photographs.  But of course it did!

Arum Lily's in bloom.  My grandmothers still grow in our front garden.  The frost got ours this year!

A stack or reek of turf or peat.

Some clever people made a garden out of pebbles complete with a table and chairs.  Its planted up with seaside plants like Thrift...

A boat planted up with bedding plants.  Its great when people make an effort to make their town look so attractive and welcoming.

Ancient dry stone walls near the ocean.  I think they are a work of art made by man and nature.

Friday night was the best in Doolin.  It rained and the wind  made my flysheet flap all night.  At quarter to four in the morning.  A twelve inch long puddle formed inside the tent.  This then proceeded to give me an early morning shower.  I was dying for a wee and my t shirt was saturated from the impromptu shower in my tent.  So I quickly ransacked my rucksack come wardrobe and changed. 

Then  I put on my walking shoes and walk the hundred yards or so to the toilet block in a newly changed t shirt.  At least it was raining  and my t shirt was getting wet.  

I later related my night of the wet t shirt story to other happy campers in the campsite laundry who happened to be also trying to dry their clothes.  Two of them shared their stories of puddles and shouting expletives at four in the morning.  I didn't feel so bad and realized I was a member of an elite club or tribe.  Hey that's a good link Dave.  

Here's a song by Luka Bloom who played with the band Fiddle Case at Doolin Folk festival.  I have seen him before at Killarney Folk Fest. He never disappoints.  

More about Doolin tomorrow!  Perhaps this could be the start of a book about Doolin Folk Festival.  It's good to be back blogging!

The Kitchen Window Sill Allotment And A Picture Of The Veg and Perennials Plot.

 Lidl have been giving away vegetable seeds with every purchase over twenty Euros.  You just add water and the pod grows into potting compost right in front of your very eyes.    There are Basil, Cherry Tomatoes, Rocket, Beetroot, Radish, Spring Onion, Lemon Balm, Carrot, Aubergine, Cress, Gherkin, Lamb's Lettuce, Dill, Cucumber, Coriander, Salad Mix, Chervil, Parsley and Thyme.  I think its a wonderful way of showing kids how things grow on the windowsill.  Don't you?

The Veg Plot.  I have potatoes growing next to the poly-tunnel and on the other sides.  The plastic boxes are full of perennials that I have made by splitting and from cuttings.  They will be sold at a car boot sale or to some one for the garden.  I put two PLANTS FOR SALE  signs in  the window the other week.  Not that many folk walk round the lane. Up to now only one neighbour came with four of her pots for me to fill with plants.  I ended up giving them to her for free!  Some budding business man am I eh?

A Cruiser Sails Into The Bay.

When mum met my dad("In Baghdad where my mother met my dad" and other childhood songs)  in the mid nineteen fifties.  She remembered massive ocean liners like the Queen Mary docking in Bantry Bay. The launches would take tourists into Glengarriff and Bantry.  

Then along came the jet engines and the ships disappeared.  That is until now.  An eight million Euro investment into building Bantry Marina and dredging the harbour. Now means that the cruise liners have returned.  No doubt the EEC funded the improvements?  Good on them.  

This is the Prinsendam.  She's beautiful.  The picture was taken on Sunday afternoon from inside the car.  It was wonderful to see tourists leaving the launches/life boats and walking round Bantry town. No doubt going for a "nice cup of tea" and a pint of the black stuff.

The mental juke box (Neil Peart saying) in my head started playing the following:

Another One Of My Gardens.

We made this garden last summer.  Number one son cleared and levelled and broke rock with his digger.  He also laid the round patio whilst I laboured on him.

The lawn, paths, borders and planting were carried out by yours truly.  Even the perennials were divided and they cost us nothing.  Just our time.

You can see dark green patches in the bottom picture.  That's the Nettle garden tea fertilizer.  I am very pleased with it.  The stench in the barrel of decomposing nettles and water is on the list of bad country smellls.  It's probably in my top three along with slurry and broiler house smell.

I noticed a patch of clover the other day.  Apparently they grow where there is not much nitrogen.  I quite like daisies and clover.  I think the Nettle brew will give the lawn the nitrogen it requires.

Lets Have Our Own Chelsea Flower Show,

Are you watching Chelsea Flower Show on the Beeb?  We watched Sundays preview but missed last nights instalment.  

I prefer the traditional Cottage gardens with Herbaceous Perennials, dry stone walls, allotment themed gardens,  Not the ones that look like the landscaped area outside an office block or bank. Gardens with plants and natural materials: water, stone, wood, lawns, flowers and not concrete.

Any way I thought why don't all us folk in Blogland have our own version of Chelsea Flower Show and show some of our very own gardens?  Here's a couple of photos from one of our gardens designed by ourselves and planted by yours truly.  

Its a labour of love and anybody can have a nice garden, yard for not very much money.  Just lots of work and a love of plants.  Your turn next.  Show us your gardens please!

 The back of the bungalow taken from over the hedge in the picture below.  This was full of brambles, rock and nettles when we first moved here.  Do you like the lady statue?  I think this garden would be good for a back yard.  Lots of pots, ornaments, gravel and plants with a curtain Fuschia hedge.  Its about fifty lfeet long by twenty foot wide.

Number one son and me his labourer made these steps the other Sunday.  It took four hours.  I had the paving slabs left over from the back garden behind the farmhouse.  That's another garden we made last year.  The blocks are second hand and I had to chisel off mortar to make them use able again.  

The building in the background is the old milk house.  Its where my dad's ancestors stored the milk to keep it cool.  I use it for a shed these days. 

Your turn now!

A Recycled Rusty Garden Table And Carrot Wheelbarrow Planter....

Here are some more of my recycling uses around the veg plot.  I made use of a  rusty old garden table for putting cuttings in pots in the poly-tunnel.  It doesn't look very attractive but its perfectly functional and its not ready for the scrap metal pile yet.  

 I bought this wheelbarrow because it had plastic sides and thus it was very light when moving soil and muck around.  They are not partial to big stones and paving slabs and it finally cracked when we use it for a concrete job.  The wheel is punctured too.  

No worries thinks me.  I utilized the wheelbarrow for growing our carrots in,  So I put it in situ and filled it with a sandy soil mix.  Checking for stones along the way.  Carrots don't like too rich or stony soil.   Then we sowed it with carrot seeds.  

The carrots are sown more than twelve inches above the ground. So in theory Mr and Mrs Carrot Fly should not give them any trouble.  They don't fly above twelve inches.  Not many people know that!

I could not resist giving the new Catmint cuttings a yank and seeing if any roots had formed.  They had.  See picture.  This is now potted up on the the patio garden table.  Isn't nature incredible?