Size Matters...or Not?

This morning I was in School doing my usual Music teaching, as well as winding up sundry children...and got a real inadvertent wind-up myself!

I hadn't gone in to talk to the new Junior Infants last week, so thought I would do so today. I must admit that to teach them would, for me, be akin to sitting in a can of live worms, but in short bursts they can be terribly funny. After a bit of chat their teacher asked them whether they knew my name? To which one bright spark exclaimed: 'She's The Piano!'

Of course I am!

Does it give a whole new meaning to, 'Does my bum look big in this?' or what!!!

A Long Cut Home...

I'm trying the new Blogger interface, so let me know if anything daft...dafter than usual....transpires on this post after publishing!

On Thursday our road home was closed for work so I had to use the Dromahair road, longer, but gorgeous scenery. I stopped above Colgagh Lough (pronounced Kol-ga) for photos. It was a fairly overcast afternoon but you can see the spread of the valley.

Looking north west...

Looking north...over the hills to the north east (right of photo) would be our place.

If you can enlarge this, it gives a bit of information on the valley.

This van I saw in a car park and had to take a photo- isn't Dripsey just the most brilliant name for an Irish town?????

On Tuesday and Thursday of this week I have put in several hours of work in the Cathedral Churchyard: weeding and clearing the borders by the Main Gate, clearing two of the larger graves which were choked with weeds, and digging back collapsed banks and replacing stones. A man regularly cuts the grass, and another parishioner keeps the edges of the drive clear of weeds, but maintenance is up to whoever has the time. Since at present everyone is trying to get the Hall painted and cleaned for use while the Cathedral is full of scaffolding and paint buckets, it seemed fair for me to mount an attack on the holy weeds!

I'll take some photos next week, just 'afters' though!

Ragin'

Would you believe, the ONE school textbook I thought we didn't have to buy because its already in the house can't be found?

We spent Monday afternoon tearing the girls' rooms and all the bookcases apart- and what d'ya bet, as soon as I buy a new copy, the old one will be discovered somewhere really obvious?!

What sort of Murphy's Law is that? €218 so far on textbooks for Youngest this term, another four texts at least to buy, and Middlest has lost the copy of MacBeth which Youngest needs.

Grrrrrrrr......

Arrrrrrggggghhhhhhh.........

Slaver......Chomp.....Spit.......

Of Churi Dahl, Weirdies, and Thrift Shop

The Lady for whom Middlest has been 'au pairing' this month wanted some small alterations to her daughters' new Churi Dahl Dresses (spelling? my Gujarati isn't so good...) and they are so very pretty I took a few photos to show you!

The baby's dress: (purple trousers to match)

These are the cuffs on the trousers- aren't they gorgeous? The colour is bad, they are forest green in reality.

And the toddler's dress, which go with the green trousers:

I used to wear Churi Dahl in East Africa, both for smart and for comfort, and boy! in a really hot, humid climate they are the most comfortable garments you could wish for...as well as covering up so well that you don't get burned, which is obviously also an issue.

I have about five outfits myself, and a Hindi friend used to share her formal ones with me when we had 'big' occasions. I wore the most ornate of mine here in Ireland once when I had to attend a formal School Charity Ball, and no one seemed to mind. I love them, comfortable and you feel fabulous!

Today is the last day before School starts for Youngest, and as she had school meetings this morning I was ambling around town for a bit. There's a furniture display in Johnston's Court and I thought this chair was just hilarious:

But these metal wall ornaments were ace...

...and I wondered whether I could play with the design for an embroidery, redwork perhaps, or in black thread? or perhaps appliqué? Anyhow, I though they were 'my' thing!

And then, in the Thrift shop I found this suede shirt, brand new, with amazing cutwork all around the hem:

Actually by its length its more of a tunic...should be a useful garment!

I also got matching pillowcases for Middlest, pink, with pictures of shoes on....absolutely spot on if you only knew- Imelda Marcos had nothing on our Middlest (in the shoe department- as far as I know, Middlest's dictator tendancies are quite stunted)...and a lined school skirt for Youngest. I paid €3 for the grey skirt and another €3 for a packet of navy blue dye: new, the school skirts cost upward of €40. Bargain!

Now tell me, am I thrifty, or am I thrifty?!

(Actually, its call being stingy, I know!!!)

A Walk in the Woods

This morning I decided to go to Hazelwood and see whether I could find seeds and nuts to plant for trees. I have been reading about the composition of hedgerows and thought I would try to grow my own! When they heard where I was going, Youngest, Small Dog and Eldest thought they would join the expedition. We were nearly two hours walking, and I think I found more photo ops than seeds, but it was such a lovely morning that it was just wonderful to be out in the forest!

Lichen

Youngest and Small Dog aka Heinz.

 A very light-starved toadstool...

...and a very well camouflaged toadstool, isn't the camouflage amazing?

There was a long stretch of dense canopy shade, and then in the one spot where the sun shone through there was this ragwort growing about 4' tall!

Clover, beech, and moss- an amazing variety of mosses on the ground and on tree trunks.

Yew candles, lots of them and very pretty.

View across Half Moon Bay from along the lake.

View across Lough Gill towards Clogherevagh and the islands.

I came across Peter Pan crowing in the old Yew- 'Oh the cleverness of Me!'

New Boots? Oh Yeah! First outing and they had a lovely time too!

This should have been at the start, as I took it when we got out of the car on arrival. As you can tell, it was a lovely morning.

And now I have two somnambulent gargoyles and one snoring Dog Person all sprawled in the sitting room watching  the DVD of 'Ice Age' (???), as one does after a long walk in the woods!

Progress? I Think...

Wednesday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday of last week I was busy out of the house, or, when I was at home, I worked in the garden.

To the uneducated eye this stretch of gravel may look very dull, but I assure you that many hours of hard weeding went into making it look this boring!

Next on the agenda is dealing with the two veg beds, which, as you can see need quite a lot of attention. I harvested a bucket of onions and garlic from the right hand one, but its since gone over to dock. And the left one is just a Triffid Nightmare. The rhubarb is happy but the Brown Wind ruined the raspberries, and the rest is just things gone to seed and running rampant. Its keeping me awake at night with its Rave music...

In the greenhouse (cupboard!) I sowed a few seeds in the hopes of having a last hurrah before the winter sets in. We very often have mild weather until the end of October, and some years it has even been mid-November before we've needed the heating, so with a bit of luck we'll get something out of this batch.

I sowed mangetout, borage, mullein (an investment against next spring) also cress and winter salad. The cress, peas and winter salad are sprouting, the others are still thinking about it. Also, indoors, I sowed Evening Primrose, which is germinating madly, so that's exciting! Oh, and spring onions... (As usual I got my seeds from Seedaholic.)

I found some cabbage seedlings around the side of the house, so I put them up on the shelf to see whether they would recover. Also, the apple pips I planted last summer sprouted, to my surprise, so I separated and re potted them. I don't know whether they will ever do much, but its worth keeping them going to see what happens. Oh, and I shook out some seeds from a foxglove on the lane and sowed them to see whether they would germinate (VERY clearly LABELLED!!).

I pulled the rapidly multiplying montbretia out of the salad bed, and intend taking them in to the Churchyard and planting them there next week. For the moment they are in water with some compost tea added to hopefully keep them happy. They'll be drunk as skunks by Monday.

And so to the salad bed... minus the aforementioned montbretia, and all the chard which had gone to seed. Parsley, ditto, mustard, ditto ditto. I pulled up reams of strawberry runners which were holding a Berry Olympic around the edges of the bed...in fact there were so many strawberry runners that there was no room for weeds, which was kinda handy I suppose.

I've planted a few of the perpetual spinach at the far end, as usual I forgot to water them so they were a bit sulky. I'm waiting to see whether they turn up their toes or kick up their heels.

I have to admit to having mixed feelings about growing strawberries. For a start, although home grown berries are delicious, there are never very many per plant, and you'd need to put down about 40 or 50 plants to be worth eating. And secondly, take your eye off them for a fortnight and they either keel over and die or they run rampant and strangle everything within reach. Or perhaps its just my slap-happy approach to gardening which is at fault, rather than the strawbs!

And just to finish, Heinz has learned a new trick which is either funny or annoying, depending. If you ignore him when he wants to play, he goes gets Bear (present from Eldest), brings it to you, and if you still ignore him he somehow flips it up at you to get your attention! Yesterday everyone was out for several hours so I was working on the laptop and Bear kept hitting me, and occasionally landing on the keyboard!

So there it is. Getting out into the Garden is a step, right?

And the Hub bought me hiking boots so now I need to brave the wider world...well, step outside the gate at any rate...

A New Resident in the Beck-House

There is a new member in the Beck household: Middlest decided to re-home a stray found in town by friends. They advertised for two weeks to find his owners, but no luck. I had mixed feelings about having another dog, and a small one at that, especially since Middlest is living-in at her present job, and will only be home periodically once College starts. But as you can see, he's such a clever animal that Youngest is even teaching him to type....

I don't know how much more he has to grow, not much I think, and he is a gas character: bright as a button, nosey, and full of bounce. They called him the Kiswahili equivalent of 'Heinz 57', though the vet thinks he's a Jack Russell- Dachshund cross, more 'Heinz 2' (that sounds more like a new car oil, huh?!).

Hoover Dog and The Fluffster aren't quite certain of him yet. Hoover Dog would quite like to be friends, but its a bit like Piglet and Tigger, when someone is so very full of bounce you never know quite what will happen next, and Hoover Dog likes predictability! The Fluffster has gone all curmudgeonly and grumpy over the whole issue and really objects to being invited to play by a mere pip-squeak of an animal...

Life in the Zoooooooo......