A Canadian in Ireland

Hello,

Once again I feel I have to apologise for not being around as much as I would like. As usual college is keeping me busy. But it's reading week and a long weekend to boot so I have a little (too little really ) time.

And what does a Canadian in Ireland do when he has some time off and it's the October Bank Holiday?

He goes to the Conker Festival of course.

Held in Freshford

The chestnuts for the competition are provided by 52 Horse Chestnut trees that surround the village green, which produce 30,000 conkers.

Here's some of them.

I'm sure you're wondering what exactly conkers are at this point. Luckily, but not surprisingly, Wikipedia has an article.

A couple of competitors



Aside from the championship there were other games


And crafts


These lads

started a mini-company selling slate crafts as part of their transition year.

The Kilkenny Flower Club were exhibiting in St. Lachtain's Church

which is famous for its 12th century carved sandstone entry.

A good day out, aside from the weather. Tomorrow? Back to the grind.

It' Arthur's Day

Originally posted by wikipedia:

Guinness drinkers are expected to raise a glass to the memory of Arthur Guinness

So, any plans for 1759?

The move finally got finished late last night. I can't believe we actually got it done, every time I thought it was finished there always seemed to be something else to go in the van.

The new house looks like our stuff was air dropped in. God knows how long before we get everything put away. And college is starting on Monday

Anyway, here's a few shots of the new house.

The front


The back


The yard

I did say it was a farm house.

You would have been impressed if you're into that sort of thing...

Read more...

For about a week now it's been really flaky, partly down to the weather I think. It's improved along with the weather, but still drops out regularly. It seems to be worse in the evenings, which of course is the only time I have to be on-line

If it keeps up I'll have to do something, ie. ring my ISP. For now we'll just have to grin and bear it.

I hoped that I would be able to post this yesterday, but the server monkeys weren't having it. I spent most of the evening uploading my photos. By the time I had that finished it was bedtime.

Read more...

Ireland



We've been in the grips of an hard stretch of winter weather with nearly a week of daily snow falls. Most unusually it hasn't been melting, but has just hung around getting deeper.





It has caused major disruption all over the east of the country, particularly transportation - roads and Dublin airport being the most prominent. The worst, personally, has been the roads. Last week it was snowing every morning when I woke up and I had to crawl down the back lanes where I live to reach a major road to get to college.





It finally broke on Friday, which I had off, and yesterday was clear though the roads were only half thawed and very slippery.

This morning the snows came again. At least it's melting on the same day.





For the minute it's clear, though there may be more snow in the morning. I'll keep you posted.

It is SERIOUSLY windy outside.

So I'm sat here listening to the gusts howl around the house and the rain hammer down. Wondering if there will be any damage.

That, and getting annoyed when the Sky goes down 'cause the dish is being blown about. I'm trying to watch Scrapheap Challenge.

Thanks for passing this on to me Leazz

I hope you were all good little boys and girls and Santa brought you what you wanted. He did for me.

A bit surprising that he came at all. We were a bit naughty and only got our decorating done yesterday. Still, I think it turned out rather well.





Last year I posted some seasonal songs which people seemed to enjoy. Again, I'm late, but better late than never.



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QsUxCrS92tw



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ojkWTseLkq0



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0L6_wmwQ4Wg

So enjoy the rest of the day. I'm looking forward to a quiet evening in with a couple of Christmas specials.


Le gach dea-ghui i gcomhair na nollag agus na h-ath bhliana!

With Best Wishes for Christmas and the New Year!

By now, unless you've been hiding - in a deep cave, under a rock, with your fingers in your ears, humming loudly to yourself - you'll know the Barack Obama haas been elected president of the US. All I can say is

About bloody time.

The campaign has been going on for what, two years?

A few things that I don't understand:

Ok, America is a superpower and an important player in global affairs. But why does the Irish media appear to be obsessed with American politics? I am baffled by the amount of coverage it receives, which seems comparable to the coverage Irish politics gets.

I doubt that Irish politics gets the same interest in America. Can the average American name the Irish Taoiseach (Prime Minister)? It's Brian Cowen, BTW.

And what about the Canadian election? Yeah, there was one back in October. I think it got one mention on the Irish evening news.

There seems to be something in the Ireland-America relationship that I've missed.

So I'm asking, what's your perception of the American election coverage where you live? Did you follow it all? Did you think you got too little, too much, or enough? How interested were you?

And for the Americans, how much coverage does foreign politics get in your media?

One final point, after all this Obama still won't be in office until the new year