Electric Aeroplanes In 2019.

A company in Israel is making and selling electric planes.  They are only nine seaters at the moment.  But already American  airline companies are buying them.

Who knows in ten years time we could be all flying to our holiday destinations in electric Aeroplanes.  Our cars will be electric and so will our Aeroplanes.

Would you fly in one of these?  Do you think electric powered cars are the future?  What do you think of wind farms?  I would rather have a blot on the landscape than nuclear power.  Imagine if we could harness wave power too.  I think the protestors may no longer need to protest if we all go green.

What do you think folks?  Would you vote for the Green Party?  Why can't  there be a green alliance with other political parties?

Bantry Bay And Hungry Hill On A Autumn Day.

I strimmed some of the garden today and around our pets graves.  Then l decided to go on a four mile walk along the boreens and on to the tarmac main road going west.  Cars and lorries sped past and I couldn't see around some of the bends because of brambles and overgrown black thorn stockproof hedges.  Sometimes it's a wing and a prayer when the vehicles come so close to me.

When I got close to the sea I took this photo with my mobile phone.  You can see Hungry Hill over on Beara.  Immortalised in book and film.  Old people would tell me that a cap of cloud on Hungry Hill means it's going to rain.  It did last night and probably tonight.  But it didn't  rain on my walk, thankfully.

 The dots/shapes in the middle of the bay are salmon rings where salmon live and are fattened.  Not quite wild but at least they live in salt water in the bay.

I never spoke to or saw anybody on my walk.  But at least l am keeping fit and l love walking.  Think I was a dog in another life.  I wouldn't like their dinners though.

Have you been on any walks lately?

On Top Of The World Or Even The Northside.

I went for a walk on the Sheeps Head Way yesterday.   It was a long my own designated walk.  Only part of it is on the official  yellow finger post Sheepshead  Way walk and the rest is along tracks and roads.  Walking and slipping and sliding and looking at Dunmanus Bay on one side and  Bantry Bay on the other side.  Perhaps it could be called Northsider  Way.  I christened another walk near Kilcrohane: The Dragons Back.  Suppose that's  how places get their names.  Somebody makes it up and it sticks. 

A concrete trig point on the Northside overlooking  Bantry Bay.

No radio or ear phones to today.   Just listening to the wind, gargling streams, bird song and a myriad of thoughts in my head.  Thinking of my ancestors walking similar routes and foraging for turf and loading it in wicker baskets strapped to weary donkeys.  This is my Ireland.  Forever accompanied with the weather but always aware of the emerald dress that she wears and dazzled by her beauty.

It's been very wet the last few weeks and my garden works dried up a little.  There's irony for you.    I have work it's just not been suitable for gardening work.  Anyone for a wheelbarrow rut in their lawn please?

About an hour into my walk the problems start to leave me and the landscape and me blend into each other.  We are one and the same.  Go for a walk and leave your troubles at home.  Makes you want to sing that Carpenters song:

"I'm on top of the world looking down on creation and the only explanation  l can find.."

All together now.

A ROCK N ROLL TALE.

When I went to my rock festival in Kent in August.  My friend  and I met a man in Fathersham (or even Faversham) who wanted to know which bus to board for the festival.  My friend told him that we were going there and we would show him which bus stop to get off.

We sat upstairs  and chatted about the line up and previous concerts we had been to.  I rhymed off seeing Thin Lizzy, Enerson Lake and Palmer, Rush, Blue Oyster Cult and of course when I  saw Kansas in Warsaw..., yawn!.  It was a pleasant bus journey with lots of rock n roll nostalgia and humorous anecdotes.

The man told us that he once went to see a legendary rock star at some rock festival.  The 'legendary rock star walked (stumbled) on to the stage. Clearly very inebriated and stoned.  He duly fell over a stack of amplifiers which crashed to the ground.in pieces. He was then heard to say:

"Eff it.  We will have to play the acoustic set now!"

Well it made us laugh.


 Have you ever seen some famous rock star rather the worse for wear?

I Got My Thin Lizzy Stamps.

The good lady wife did purchase me two Thin Lizzy stamps this very morn.  The black rose on the left is the name and front cover of their classic Black Rose album.  The great and much missed Phil Lynott is on the stamp on the left.

They cost one Euros each.  I won't be using or posting the stamps.  We will put them away and hope they will be collectables one day.  Especially when it's commemorating Thin Lizzy's 50th anniversary one year early.

• Hope you like them?

A Stamp Dedicated To Thin Lizzy.

The leaflet that our postman delivered.  Do you like the Border Collie coasters?

An Post have just had two limited edition stamps Thin Lizzy stamps made to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the band.  I will be getting mine this week.  Who knows they might be worth something one day?

Thin Lizzy are one of my favourite Rock bands.  I saw them at Manchester Apollo in November 1981.  When I was just seventeen.  It was the Renegade tour and the belted out all their classics.  Phil Lynott was a big Manchester  United fan and he was only 36 when he went to Heaven.  Snowy White was also in the band and I saw him again in 2013 playing in Roger Waters band in Warsaw.  I also saw other former Lizzy member Gary Moore play at Milton Keynes and I have seen Eric Bell play The Mariner in Bantry twice.

Somebody recently pointed out that Thin Lizzy's 50th anniversary is not until next year.  But does it really matter?  Fair play to An Post for printing the special edition stamps and dedicating to Thin Lizzy.  Fair play for posting the leaflet too.

Here's an appropriate Thin Lizzy  video called ' Dedication', enjoy!

Going For A Third New Potato Crop.

You can see new potatoes  sprouts pushing up their stalks in the polystyrene packaging case on the left.  

We have grown early new potatoes in the polytunnel which were ready to harvest in May.  Then we sowed some carrots in their place and we grew potatoes outside in the veg plot too. 

Stuff grown in the polytunnel was far more successful and quicker to harvest and it didn't have to contend with the very mixed weather, lots of rain and a field day for the slugs and snails.  Perhaps Ireland should see if it can apply to the EU for an enormous  polytunnel grant and cover the whole of the country?

.

My dad used to tell me that my grandparents always had new potatoes ready for Christmas.  So I decided to save some little ones and go for a third crop.  Hopefully the frost won't blacken the tops with them growing in the polytunnel?

Anybody else growing any out of season vegetables?