We were at Monte Gordo train station waiting for a train to visit Ayamonte in Spain and J walked up the platform taking photos of Flamingos in the river:
Flamingos shouting mating calls like:
"Are you putting the kettle on Elsie?"
I heard a West Yorkshire lady about my age say to her presumably grown up daughter:
"I haven't seen out like them. Have you?"
I could not think of a more appropriate saying. The Flamingos were a sight for sore eyes.
I had only ever seen them before in zoos and safari parks but never in the wild. Makes a change from seagulls and crows.
We saw the future last week and it was not garlic bread.
Us culchies or country dwellers in rural Ireland don't have street lights and from August until around now it's pitch black at tea time.
We were on a bus to Castro Marim last week and we saw these solar panels. What a perfect solution especially for rural areas?
Apparently they cost around 2000 Euros. Use LED bulbs and need no electricity supply.
Recently here in Ireland the county council's have been reducing the speeds on rural roads from 80 K to 60 and changing the road signs. This must of cost thousands nationally. Perhaps they could look at solar power street lighting?
I would love to go a walk with Bronte at night like the people in the towns and villages can.
Sheer genius. A pair of scissors to open the sachets of condiments.
I had the repeat of the tomato ketchup murder scene in the kitchen the other day with the ketchup. Except I was sat outside a restaurant and giving free entertainment for onlookers.
I squeezed the corner of the sachet with my teeth and duly sprayed tomato/🍅 sauce my T shirt and shorts with tomato ketchup.
So I washed them in the shower and left them overnight on the hotel balcony on a plastic seat to dry and of course they didn't dry, and we had to walk round the corner to a launderette, to pay 3 Euros to dry them for 18 minutes.
We even walked to a supermarket to pass the time and there was still 9 minutes left to watch the dryer spin.
Then one day last week we sat outside a cafe bar and J ordered an ham and cheese toasty with chips and I had a Club sandwich and J had a glass of house wine and I had a large beer or Super Bock.
The condiments came with a pair of scissors. I have seen the future and it's not garlic bread!
Remember in December 2023 when Heidi our German Shepherdess bitch had ten beautiful 🐶 puppies 🐶?
Well we bred her again when she last came into heat. Last Friday dear old Heidi Pied gave birth to just 3 fat puppies:
Proud Heidi with her 3 new Canine babies.
I call them her: "Three Musketeers".
We were a bit disappointed when she only had the 3 pups. But then we realised mother and babies are in perfectly health and we are going to have 3 bundles of fun to play with for 11 weeks.
J bought Heidi a full sized chicken and roasted it in the oven for her. Heidi wolfed it down and washed it down with her dish full of milk pop!
Heidi needs her strength to feed her 3 fat puppies.
Rick Buckler the drummer from The Jam passed away aged 69 the other day. They were often described as a Mod band. I always thought them more New Wave/Punk.
Like so many of the bands of my youth they sang with working class teenage angst.
I never got to see them live but I did once see Bruce Foxton the bassist and his band play at a outdoor music festival in Rochdale with some of my friends.
One of my pals N died when he was only about forty. He was such a character and could be so funny on our pub trips to Hebden Bridge and Haworth. I miss him very much.
I have lost contact with so many people but then again I have lived nearly a quarter of a century in Ireland.
I once blogged about us (N and me) going on a school trip to Belle Vue Zoo in Manchester and feeding our home made sandwiches to the Polar bears. Remember jars of Princess beef paste jars?
Our mums added the salt and pepper. The Polar bears reached out and pawed the sandwiches like a famous Manchester City German goalkeeper used to save goals.
Then we went on the paddle boats and N created an enormous tide ripple and splash and two fit girls on another boat in our class got their short skirts and no doubt knickers wet?
We howled with laughter and so did the girls and we bought them hot dogs from Wimpy. Belle Vue is now an housing estate in Gorton.
I have chosen " Going Underground" by The Jam for one of their videos to play.
Paul Weller wrote it in response to the awful then Conservative government that cared nothing for the millions of unemployed and seemed content to make England into an American aircraft carrier with an enormous nuclear arsenal.
My West Cork smallholding is a nuclear free zone!
I remember going on a massive 200000 plus CND March in London in the early eighties. A time when political parties had much differing views and not with policies seperated by the thickness of cigarette paper like todays parties.
Only last week Keir Starmer visited Hinkley Point praising nuclear power. This week he wants to put British troops in Ukraine. The mind boggles. You become a peace keeper soldier Mr Prime minister?🤔
Any way enjoy the tune. Did any of you ever see The Jam live?
This song would be a good digging song for us gardeners:
