Five on Friday - St Swithin's Day

I want to start by saying how my heart breaks for the people in France today - where is all this terrible hatred coming from!  From Dallas to Baghdad and now Nice ... not to mention those poor souls in Syria.  After all the years of bombings and shootings that we endured in our little corner of the world I know that there is only fear in people's hearts at the moment.  All I can hope for is that we who are far enough away from danger, for the moment at least, can keep trying to spread joy and love and light into the world whenever we can or else the bad guys have won.

So on that note, I'm going to remember the good times this week and join with Amy at Love Made My Home for Five on Friday.  I'm keeping the bright side out.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 

1. No Rain Today (or not yet anyway)

Today is St Swithin's Day - the story goes that if it rains today, we'll have rain for 40 days.   Old and not so old folks will be keeping fingers crossed here that we can get through another couple of hours dry - this must be the first day in nearly a month when it hasn't rained and I really don't have a lot of faith that we'll get to tonight without it.   What is it about July?  Nominally it's summer; everyone's ready for summer; the shops are selling shorts, sleeveless tops and things to barbecue .... and we have the fire lit!!
Ah well, nothing else for it - I went out and bought a jumper today.

2. Work in Progress

Reuniting a jumper that I thought was lovely when I started it and when I completed it first time around, is not such a pleasure anymore.   But I can't let myself away with not finishing it.   What happened was that I lost a lot of weight between starting and completing it and it never occurred to me to take a few measurements!!   That would have been too simple.   And I also never considered just giving as a present to someone.   so I have the back redone and this is the first of the fronts - the sleeves will also need to be shortened!  I have a feeling it won't be finished this winter.  Have you ever had ago totally restart a piece of crafting?  

This is what it will look like

 3. Wednesday Session

I told you last week about all the session here during the week.  It's building up to Festival time so visitors are starting to appear and it was the perfect time for a young historian here to launch his booklet Introducing people to Rostrevor.  It turned in to a fabulous night of songs and stories, tunes and yarns... Here's a few images from it...  I wish Peter every success with his first book - and if you're ever in the area he'll take you on a walking tour of the vicinity with lots of information.  

Peter McGrath Jnr introducing his new book
"An Introduction to Rostrevor"

 After lots of soloists sang with great order in the room, the evening turned into a session with instruments appearing from nowhere.

And ending up with the best rendition of that good old traditional song (not) of Paul Simon's - You Can Call Me Al - delivered by John and the entire pub doing the African Male Voice Choir backing up bits ....Very funny.   

4. Listowel, Co. Kerry

Tom and I headed down to Kerry for a couple of nights over the weekend - I've always wanted to visit Listowel, and to have a night in John B Keane's pub - probably the most famous pub in Ireland.
Listowel is famous for its writers' festival which takes place at the start of June each year and happens here mainly because of John B, who wrote The Field among other great stories of Irish life.   All his novels, plays, short stories and poems were written here behind the counter in his bar - watching the comings and goings and antics of the locals.

John B Keane's pub, Listowel

Nectar lined up on the counter in various stages of settling.  
Oh I wish I still could drink Guinness.

Richard Harris won the Best Actor Oscar for his portrayal of "The Bull" McCabe
in Jim Sheridan's 1990 film of  "The Field"

5. Great Band Names

I love funny names for bands - I used to play keyboards once in a band called Dickie Ticker and the Palpitations!  Then there was the Ceilidh Band who once won the best band competition at some Scottish Festival in the 90s - they were called Ceilidh (pronounced Kayly) Minogue :)   Love it.

This one caught my eye in Listowel - pity the poster was curling up on itself ...  

Playing Sunday - Phil 'n The Blanks 

Thanks once again Amy for running this lovely blog hop and for giving me an excuse to find the things in life to be joyous about.

Linking to

Five On Friday

In an effort to get back into the swing of regular blogging, I thought I'd join in this week with Five on Friday which is run by Amy at Love Made My Home

This week we've had rain more or less every day so my baskets and window boxes are not thriving as well as I would have hoped ... yet ... and some of the debris from cutting out some of the shrubbery has still to be removed.   But the garden is looking great since we cut down the hedge and I can't get enough of looking out at the sea at different times of the day.

So....


One - low tide last night and the sunset lighting up the trees.

Even after all the rain we've had, the world can suddenly turn on its axis when the sun shines and casts a brilliant light over everything.  

Two :  Flowers

I love the blue eyes in this hydrangea 

And my heart's delight - the wild fuchsia - it just makes my heart jump for joy.
Didn't spot the wee visitor on the stem ... nor on the next one

Three:   Ripe for the Picking

We're not great gardeners in this house ... I have an agreement with plants - there's the garden, now you do your thing!   If you want help from me you're probably not going to get it - so some of them, at least, appreciate being left alone.





Four:   Pugs

I'm not really a doggy person, although most of my friends have dogs and we dog sit from time to time for them.    But we met a wee pug down in Australia earlier this year who was not taking no for an answer when it came looking for attention.   I wrote about him here.
Anyway, two things this week brought him back to mind - Firstly there was a festival for Pugs in England recently, called ... wait for it ... PugFest :)   Talk about cuteness.   Their website isn't great but you'll get the idea.
And then someone posted this photo on Facebook and I burst out laughing ... poor dog!   I didn't have my glasses on and at first I thought it was a sheep ... They look so worried ... But with so much bleakness in the world at the minute, they bring a much needed dose of joy and I love seeing them.

Five : Sessions
We now have sessions running 6 nights a week here in Rostrevor - not full-on traditional tunes sessions, but a mix of singing and tunes - mostly songs.   We are blessed with beautiful pubs in the village, and the place is coming down with songwriters and song interpreters.
Last night we went along to a new one which starts early for a change - everything was in full swing when we went in at 9 - normally they don't start until 10 or 10.30 by which stage I'm ready for bed, or at least I'm prostrate on the couch watching TV.  But it was superb - songs were sung from traditional to ballad to brand new to comedy to Bob Dylan and Leonard Cohen and there were two story tellers there as well.   There were visitors in from Australia, Germany and America as well as a bar full of locals as well.
Someone asked me recently about finding music in the pubs in the North of Ireland - that it's a bit more difficult than in the South.   Well it is and it isn't - most newspapers list where there are sessions taking place and usually in the smaller villages you'll find music going on somewhere where you are more than welcome to join in.
So if you ever make it to South Down, to Rostrevor, you can visit the Corner House on Tuesday night, the Rostevor Inn on Wednesday from 8.30, the Cloughmor on Thursday from 10, the Kilbroney on Friday, the Old Killowen on Saturday and the Kilbroney again on Sunday nights tfrom 7.30.   We are spoilt for choice.  Oh, and if you happen to be here on a Monday, then Gabriel leads the session in the First and Last in Warrenpoint, 2 miles away!  No excuses.

This is an old pic from the Tuesday night session in the Corner House over the Winter.

See you soon.

Walking by the sea today

We're slowly getting in to the rhythm of summertime here - most of it spent indoors because of all the rain we've had, but there have been glimmers of wonderful evenings.  

I went out with my camera on Sunday night and caught these images. 

I just love these dried up flowers on the rocks by the sea. 

Looking out to the Irish Sea 

And I'd never spotted this little flower before.

The sunset looked perfect through them. 

These rocks are a great colour at this time of year

A lovely evening

The sun going down over Killowen

Looking back on June

Rain clouds were gathering across the water in Europe on Tuesday evening when I finally got out for a walk along the shore to clear my head after all the shouting, anger and depression caused by the Referendum vote.  

I can't have a look back on the month without mentioning it so you may bear with me and then I'll get on to happier thoughts :)

I voted Remain as did most people along the border here in Northern Ireland.   And I feel that the result will have a huge impact on us - not least of which is that we have the prospect of having the border back again.  

Since 1992, we could sort of pretend that we were one island, a part of a larger group of islands, and with the benefit of all places - the UK, Europe and Ireland.  But now, with huge respect to my friends in England and Wales, and to my friends here who voted Leave, for the first time in my life I feel that we are simply an annexe of England.

My dread has been that we would see a re-emergence of the Troubles and most of the thugs who were involved back then don't need much excuse to find their jollies wherever they can.  I do hope the politicians see the necessity to get on with things quickly and not let the place descend into anarchy.  And I hope that our friends living here who hail from outside of the UK and Ireland stay safe.  Sad to say that, as in other parts of the UK, the barely contained sectarianism is showing its ugly face again, although there hasn't been such blatant racist attacks as on the Mainland.  But there's been enough to make me afraid.

If the shoe was on the other foot, and the Leave camp had lost,  I'd be most angry if they were calling  for a repeat of the vote, so although I'm disappointed,  what's done is done and we wait with baited breath to see what happens now. One thing's for sure - the news has never been more fascinating.

On the plus side, already the changes in the value of the Euro:Pound exchange rate has meant that the shops North of the Border are having a little boom but the many farmers who have farms straddling the border are worrying as to where their income will come from now that European money will be withdrawn.   Any goods or services we buy from across the border are now costing us a good bit more - we'd be across in the South at least a couple of times a week - we were in Dublin yesterday, in Donegal on Sunday - but the exchange has always been very mobile here and most of us carry two purses, so that will all adjust.   We're quick to learn where the petrol is cheaper!!

* * * * * * * * 

It's been great to have a bit of downtime after all our travels and we arrived back to a fabulous couple of weeks of sunshine.   We finally got our hedges trimmed back and the garden is starting to take shape. 

I spotted this chap one evening - they're so skittish
so I was pleased he stood still long enough for a quick snap

We missed the Blues on the Bay Festival-
this sign outside one of the pubs summed it up.

Thistles in bloom along the shore

 Tom was involved in recording a CD for a local Church and at their launch last week I was thrilled to see these lovely modern stained glass windows.  The colour of stained glass always delights me but to see unusual use of it made it all the more beautiful.

Now preparations begin for Fiddlers Green Festival at the end of July.   They have a new website up, so visitors can now buy tickets in advance.  We're playing on the Main Stage on Monday night with Luka Bloom, and then running the singaround on the final lunchtime.   I'm looking forward to all the visitors arriving over the next few weeks from places near and far and to sharing some drinks, tunes and songs with friends old and new.

But for now it's Wimbledon - and of course its raining :) Perfect weather for enjoying a couple of days on the sofa to watch Andy's progress.

Happy Summer everyone :)

Looking back on May

Now that I've started to thaw out after so much travelling this Spring, I'm enjoying looking back over our travels in Germany during May - we had a splendid time.

The first week at home after a long tour is like a whirlwind of emotions for me ... like, why on earth am I doing this?  I should have got a sensible job years ago and then I could retire like my friends are getting ready to do etc etc.   But after a week or so, when the garden has been suitably attacked and I've stopped missing my lovely cats who haven't been around for a few years now, then my mind instantly goes back to practice and planning.  So on Monday I was back at the desk getting a few bits into place for this time next year when we'll hopefully be travelling the Autobahns again (I do hope they have all the roadworks finished by then!)
So here's a few snaps ...

Canada Geese fattening up before the next stage of their journey

The Canada Geese were on Hallig Hooge when we were there - they're magnificent birds and protected by law which turns these islands into birdwatching holiday havens.  People come from all over to visit and to photograph them as they land mid journey.  If you don't know about Hallig Hooge, the lovely little not quite island off the coast of Germany,  read my blog here.

Hallig Hooge in the distance at low tide from Schlüttsiel

The Hallig is totally exposed to the North Sea and can be very windy - I've come to the conclusion after our trip to Australia, that I really really don't like the cold - I was meant to live in warmer climes.

There's something very architectural about low tide.

Tom took this ridiculous photo of me with our friend Barney
at the Dyke on Hooge.
I was so cold - no matter how many layers I had on me,
including Barney's jacket over my own coat, jumper, tunic and T-shirt!!!
And to make it even worse, they were enjoying a heatwave back in Ireland :) 

Good use of an old boat outside Kiel

Rapeseed everywhere

Some of our audience in Eckernfoerde

House concerts are a new departure for us
This was in Susi and Oli's living room, 4 floors up in Berlin

An unexpected hour of sunshine at the beach at the lake

Wood piles everywhere - this one under a church
I love the architecture of cut wood - beautiful shapes

From Rostrevor to Annahütte - we played lots of concerts in Churches,
and this one is one of my favourites, Henriettekirche

Don't be a sheep - not sure who this advert was for but it caught my eye

The formal gardens at the 10th century Monastery Kamp Kloster
We wondered how much work must go in to keeping this precision.
(I could use some of those guys to get my hedges in order)

The monastery there can name its abbots
right back to its foundation in 1123
Impressive 

Our ferry was changed from Cherbourg to Rosscoff - luckily we had allowed ourselves extra time to get there from our last stop in Luxembourg.   We ran into the start of the torrential rain that went on in France and Germany for nearly 10 days.  I have NEVER seen anything like the downpour in my life.  Sadly some people were hurt by lightning only a few miles away from where we were trying to battle our way through the storm.

Relieved to get on board the ferry, just missing the strike in France
and the sun was shining ... there's a fabulous sun deck on this boat.

It was lovely to catch up with old friends and make new ones along the road.  But I am very happy to be home for a while - hedges beware!!!