TRANQUILITY

This blog has returned to normal, well whatever normal is... This blog is a continuation of our holiday in Co. Clare and the photos are those that were taken in the early morning immediately after my first nights sleep in a strange bed. A single bed at that, which in itself felt strange, not having the comfortable companionship of a sleeping partner immediately next to me. 

The dawn light breaks lovingly through in the eastern sky.

On the horizon the low fog and the sea reflects the dawn lights.

And all is tranquil.

Looking to the northeast-ish.

Our holiday home and the replaced Bentley catches the early light.

Long shadows are cast upon the ground, typical for the time of the year.

The small harbour of Ballyvaghan with its fishing boats sit silently shrouded under 

Cappanwalla and Gleninagh Moutains of The Burren.

Later that day we visited an Arts and Crafts Exhibition where Jane met a local artist Helen Lowe.

 It turned out, unknown to me, that they are Facebook friends ! 

There are more photo's to share with you because I really do want to show case

this part of Ireland with you all.

Brian Boru and Old Magic

Cashel town

On Saturday morning we were up early (for us) to drive down to Cashel in Tipperary in order to meet with some friends. They were also driving down from somewhere in Cork.

Has that confused you ?

Here in Ireland no matter where you live or in what direction you are going the phrase used is ‘going down to’, people who live on the south coast will 'travel down to’ places in the north.

For a few days I had been keeping an eye on the weather forecasts to see what we could expect.

On Saturday morning there was an orange alert for a high, west wind and heavy rain with a variable temperature of 4 to 7 deg C. 

"Damn to hell" I thought that can’t be right, "ah’ we will give it a go anyway."

So we did.  As we left home the temperature was 5.5 deg C but after a few miles it rose to 7.4 degrees. I sat in the front passenger seat and in my mind kept focussing on seeing blue skies over Cashel.

When stopped for a while in Urlingford to have a sandwich we had sleet falling on the windscreen. That did not deter me though as I kept on focussing on fine weather. We arrived at our destination, the temperature had risen and it was dry but with a chill wind. We finally met our friends and repaired to a pub.We sat in a window seat chatting away and drinking coffee. Nothing stronger as alcohol during the day makes me sleepy and I recall, when I was a 'dry’ driver, how annoying the fumes of strong drink could be.

Towards the end of our meeting a burst of sunlight shone through the window and as I looked up the sky was blue. “Ah-hah the old magic still works” I thought to myself.

The Rock of Cashel

Outside the pub we said our goodbyes and returned to the car park in a strong biting wind, we were very glad of the shelter that the car provided. 

On leaving the town I asked her Ladyship to pull over so that I could take a photo of The Rock of Cashel from whence the town of Cashel gets its name.

In the 5th century, the Eóganachta dynasty founded their capital on and around the rock and many kings of Munster have reigned here. In 977 the Dál gCais usurper, Brian Boru, was crowned here as the first non-Eóghanacht king of Cashel and Munster in over five hundred years. His great-grandson, King Muirchertach Ua Briain, gave the place to the bishop of Limerick in 110, denying it forever to the MacCarthys, the senior branch of the Eóganachta. 

The bishops once had a famous school in Cashel and from there sent priests all over the continent.They even maintained their own monastery, called Scots Monastery, in Regensburg, Germany.

These days Rock is under the care of Heritage Ireland whose scaffolding can be seen over Cormac’s Chapel.

The project underway currently involves conserving the chapel, built from sandstone, which has deteriorated to such an extent that it is letting in water. 

A notice on their web site explains that access to the Chapel is limited from May till September each year for bus tours until the work is completed. Visitors are admitted in small groups for 10 minutes maximum.

We had a great day out and by the time we had returned the temperature had risen to 10 deg, which proves that it is unwise to believe everything that the experts tell us.

Our next adventure will be ……. ah you will have to wait and see :)

FIRE WARNING - What ?

I just had to share this!

Fire warning issued for rural areas.

at Saturday 4th April 2015 - 07.59 AM

A warning has been issued by the Fire Service and Bord na Mona on the risk of fires in the countryside this weekend.

The organisations said the chance of fire is much greater at Bank Holiday weekends as there are more people enjoying outdoor activities.

Bord na Mona is urging people not to light fires outdoors and to dispose of cigarettes in a safe way.

_____________________________________

It is not as if we have had a hot dry winter followed by a rainless Spring. Yesterday I noticed ponding on the sides of the roads as water from the fields was spilling out on to the highways.

The bogs too must be inundated, peat is known for water retention and therefore I can only assume that the moron who issued the publication of this notice has yet to go out and walk in the countryside.

Winter's Last Refrain

Where the snow still sits was once the home of glaciers 8,000 years ago.

The landscape that we see today, hills, valleys and rivers, were shaped by the melting of the glaciers. As large chunks of ice broke off and slid downwards, sweeping away the alluvials before, them they carved new shapes in the land. All of that is so easy to see and appreciate just before the last snow of winter melts away.

We travel this narrow road several times a week and only when a photo is taken do we actually see the beauty of its' form with all its' twists and turns.

Story for Ollie

Once upon a time in the middle of Ireland there was a great big field, an enormous field that touched the the sea on each side. 
Each of the seas were a different size, the one on the left was a little sea that touched England. The colour of this sea was bright blue and from a high flying plane a small boy was able to see boats going backwards and forwards between the two countries.

The sea on the other side was green with great big waves and nothing but wave after wave for miles and miles, though it was rumoured that after thousands of miles there was another country, but as none on this side have ever seen it - well perhaps it may not be there at all, at all!

A boy who is called Ollie was on the plane taking his Mummy & Daddy to Ireland for a holiday to see his Grandpa & Granny and  their dog Toby. It was to be a special treat for his parents as they had been ever so good to him for the past twelve months,by taking him out a weekends and running errands for him.
Ollie knew that they enjoyed going on planes for he knew that it was the quickest way of going to see Grandpa & Granny.

They flew directly to Dublin from Birmingham without having to stop on the Moon as many other planes had to when flying in from other places and planets.

Ollie had a special job to do once he got Ireland, for there was a man in the big field who owned a red tractor which was driving around and around in circles not knowing how to stop. Which is why Grandpa phoned up Ollie for his help.

It was a special help that only the two of them could do together. It involved sprinkling special dust in front of the tractor before it would stop.
Grandpa’s legs would not go fast enough to catch the tractor but he knew no one better or faster than young Ollie.

The man in the tractor was getting ever so hungry because he had been going in circles for weeks on end and had only managed to catch a few of the sandwiches that Grandpa threw at him every day. It being Ireland he wasn’t thirsty because it rained every other day and caught the rain water in a bucket and drank from it. With the remainder he was able to wash his face and clean his teeth.


Eventually Ollie’s Daddy managed to locate the car that took them to Granny & Grandpa’s very old cottage, that some people said was in the middle of nowhere; Ollie didn’t like that description very much because quite logically every where was in the middle of somewhere.
There are some very silly people about with the silliest of sayings, for as Grandpa had often said to Ollie "why even the fairies know where we live."

Granny too agreed with this sentiment for she like Grandpa was on very good terms with the Fairies. Granny was also friends with the old Wizard who lived beneath an Ash tree just along the road from them, in a large house that was bigger and older than where Granny & Grandpa lived.  
The Wizard’s house had stone stairs and low doorways. His customary greeting to the callers that he liked was ‘Mind your heads!’.
To those he didn’t like, no warning was given and when they banged their heads he would spin them around to point them in the other direction. And so they would find themselves back at home. Such was the strength of his Magic.

Granny had been to visit the Wizard to get from him the Special Dust that Ollie was to sprinkle in front of the tractors wheels to stop the engine.
There were of course careful instructions on how this was to be done, of what to carry the powder in, for it could not be anything made of metal nor could it be made of cloth. Only an earthenware bowl that had been washed in the moonlight, licked by Toby and blessed by the chief Fairy would do the job. And only Granny could carry the bowl while Ollie, using a spoon made of green holly, sprinkled the potent dust in front of the tractor wheels at noon.

Soon Ollie and Granny had done their jobs exactly to the Wizards' instructions. The tractor stopped and Grandpa helped the man down off the tractor and took him home in a wheel barrow for the poor man was totally exhausted.
He slept soundly in his bed for nine days waking only each morning as the cock crowed and then went back to sleep again. On the ninth day he awoke had his stir-about ( porridge) for breakfast and cycled on his bike to Granny & Grandpa’s cottage, where he found Ollie and gave him a big shiny red tractor all of his own.

I do worry...

I do worry at times about Ireland's weather forecasters and their educational standards especially when I read this on Met Éireann -The Irish Meteorological Service this morning that :

"Temperatures will recover a little on Monday, reaching the mid to late teens by afternoon"

I can only presume that the writer's mind was caught up with a teenage problems at the time and what they meant was 'mid to high teens'

The same grammatical error was copied by RTÉ Weather's journalist and presumably no checks are ever done....

It's Warmish !

After seven years of cool and cold & wet summers we have soared to 30 deg C (86 deg F) those out door jobs that I had planned to do on dry days are cancelled. Instead I shall relax in the shade with a book and a glass of iced coffee.

We live in under the 30 indicator on the map, warm in summer and cold in winter

3 Day Outlook 
Headline: Very little change for the next few days. 

Wednesday night will be another dry and mainly clear night and it will be misty again. Temperatures overnight will be between 13 and 15 degrees and winds will remain light easterly. 

Thursday and Friday will continue dry, warm and sunny. Temperatures will be between 22 and 27 degrees and on Thursday it will be hottest in the west of the country while on Friday it is likely to be hottest in the east. Winds still light and from the east or southeast. Temperatures over night will fall to between 12 and 15 degrees. 

There is set to be a change from Friday on however. Winds will become northwesterly later on Friday and then Saturday will be a slightly cooler day in the northwest. 

Although a little cooler Saturday will still be dry. Winds will be from a northerly direction and there's a risk of cloudier conditions in the northwest coastal areas. Temperatures still well over twenty degrees in the east and southeast but falling back to the mid to late teens in parts of the west and the northwest. 

The further outlook through the weekend and in to the early days of next week is for continued dry and settled conditions but the hot weather will be replaced by a slightly cooler regime, still reaching well above 20 degrees on most days though, particularly in the east and south.

The Weather !

I just felt that after having gone through two extremely wet summers and last year being one of those where we never got three dry days in a row. That I would share with you as much as I am able our good fortune.

For those of you who might be thinking where we live ? Our home is roughly beneath the the second 2 of the middle 22 and in case you cannot figure out which of two two's then take a look a tomorrows forecast and we are under the 3 of the 23 situated roughly in the middle of Ireland.

Mrs H and I hope that where ever you are in the world that you too are being treated kindly by the weather!

Our Weather Forecast

08 April 2013 10:54

Today

Most places will be dry with bright or sunny spells today, however patchy rain in the southwest will become persistent and heavy during the afternoon and evening. It will stay cool and breezy with highest temperatures of 7 to 10 degrees in fresh easterly wind

Tonight

Tonight will be dry in most areas with some clear spells but rain will continue for a time in the southwest. Lowest temperatures of 0 to 4 degrees, coldest in the north with some frost here. Fresh easterly winds will persist overnight.

Tomorrow

Tuesday will be a rather cloudy day, with just a few sunny spells. Many places will be dry again, just a few scattered showers. Highest temperatures of 7 to 10 degrees. Breezy again at first, but fresh easterly winds will ease somewhat in the afternoon.

Outlook

On Tuesday night, outbreaks of rain or drizzle will continue to affect Munster for a time. Much of the country will be dry with some clear spells and with frost developing. Lowest temperatures of -1 to +2 degrees. 

Wednesday will start off dry with sunny spells. Some showers will develop in the morning and then persistent rain will spread from the south through the afternoon and evening along with fresh to strong, gusty easterly winds. Highest temperatures of 7 to 10 degrees. The rain will be heavy at times and may fall as sleet in places. It will gradually clear to the northeast overnight and on Thursday morning. Scattered showers will follow. Winds will ease and become northerly. It will be cold with highest temperatures of 6 to 9 degrees. It will continue quite cold on Friday with sunny spells and scattered showers. Saturday will start off dry and bright. However a spell of wet and windy weather will spread from the south later, bringing some heavy rain. It will clear to scattered showers on Sunday, But it will continue cold and blustery.