Welcome Strangers

The dogs make their mark on the new concrete. These paw
marks look 'proud' rather than indented but that is just
because the light is coming from behind me. 

It may well be the Irish DNA in the Lady of the House, but there's nothing Liz likes more than 'hosting'. Hospitality - all that palaver of welcoming guests, organising their visits, getting rooms ready, ship-shape and comfortable and then, of course, all the menu planning and extra food prep and cooking. Of course the visit itself with the chance to make new friends and improve old friendships, chat, socialise. It matters not whether the guests are friends or family, long-lost cousins or just dinner-guests. Just this week we have diversified that even further to include complete strangers. Maybe not strictly 'complete' - we could learn a bit about both on line prior to their arriving.

The Pieris out front puts out its bright
salmon pink first new leaves.

First this week, though a delightful and enjoyable visit from the Bro-in-Law, 'Sparks' (old friend of the blog) who came down on his 52nd birthday, the Tuesday, with his partner Kim. They came to enjoy a special meal cooked by Liz (our own chicken) and Sparks, Kim and I nailed a good few glasses of wine (though it was a 'school night' for Liz). We chatted late into the night, enjoyed a good night's sleep and shared a lovely goose-egg breakfast. But they are"just family" now, so great to have them, but no longer front page news. That slot falls to this week's OTHER guests, the "exciting" visit to which I alluded in the last post, a renowned artist and a Senator, no less!

Brian gets the Senator down on white card.

The artist is Brian John Spencer from (his words) affluent South Belfast. He's 29, enthusiastic and ambitious to make a name as an artist having decided on a serious change of direction having studied Law and French through Uni. He is very knowledge-able and keen on the interesting history and politics of the North and particularly (lately) the various solutions now being discussed to the issue of Brexit.

Brian puts some colour in Tom's cheeks.

He conceived a project to visit every county in the Island ("Ireland in 32") to stay with different people from all walks of life, do some 'art' and discuss politics, history and local stuff with any 'Great and Good' he could net on his way round. His main thing is political cartoon drawings but also 'Vanity Fair' style line and colour-wash drawings of people - wedding guests and so on. Of course he has a Facebook account (one for him and one for the project), Twitter and website(s) where you can look him up. I will include some links at the bottom of this post.

Brian John Spencer and Senator Frank Feighan enjoy Liz's
roast lamb and champ.

We first heard of this and Brian when Liz saw a Tweet (a Twitter post) listing all the county stops and their dates with a request for help finding him a night's accommodation in each one. That sounded like fun for us so we immediately snapped up the Roscommon one (originally 29th/30th March) and we were hosting our first ever professional artist! He'd be roughly half way through his mission by the time he got here - he finishes in Dublin on Easter Sunday.

Senator Frank Feighan poses for his
cartoon sketch by Brian

All good so far. Brian started his tour and we followed his progress over the first days on Twitter and Facebook but then it got even better and more unlikely. Our local Senator, Frank Feighan who we would not have known from Adam, is currently challenging the Senate with a suggestion that Ireland and Northern Ireland both join the "Commonwealth of Nations" as a trading block to stay in contact with the UK post Brexit. Brian was fascinated by this "Wild West / West-Brit" suggestion (his words again) which would be almost treasonable in various parts of the North, so he contacted Frank and invited him to come here for supper too. Now we were hosting our first artist and our first politician and we were all starting to feel a bit over-whelmed. In for a penny though, Liz decided to call in very knowledge-able and respected 'Village Elder', Tom C who is also Producer of the imminent village play. Then there were 3. There was then a little mix up on dates where 'we' had to swap with Co. Longford but it all went as planned on the new date 30/31 March, last night.

Left to right, Tom C, Frank Feighan, my self and Brian Spencer

I must confess to a bit of nervousness as we had no real idea what either guest would be like, whether they'd relax and enjoy our company, whether we'd be able to contribute to the discussions (well, that was me - Liz is so good on politics and history she'd easily hold her own and could go off and worry about the food and the hosting being acceptable to these 'VIP' types). Frank particularly, might have had 'issues' with we 'voters' as all we knew of him was that in a political mess-up 5 years ago, the general election was won in Roscommon by main party Fine Gael on a promise not to close the Roscommon hospital A+E unit. As soon as they were in the did a U-turn and closed it. There was outrage and almost rioting locally and Fine Gael are still living it down. Our man, a TD (=MP) at the time, was right in the thick of it, obliged to break his promise to the voters by voting WITH the party to close it, so he shipped 4 years of vilification in the local press, death threats, hate mail and not a prayer of getting re-elected as TD. 4 years later he is back in business having been appointed to the Senate by a grateful 'Premier' (An Taoiseach), Enda Kenny. I hope I have this correct - serious apologies all round and I will retract any 'Fake News' and edit this post if not.

Peach blossom starting in the tunnel.

Well, you will be delighted (as we were) that we had no need to worry. All present were lovely, personable, happy and relaxed, thoroughly enjoyed our place and our food, shared a few gentle drinks ( I even got some Shepherd Neame beer into these Irish types!). Liz had done a menu where every course had a little bit of this small holding in it - starter was trad nettle soup (our nettle tips), mains were roast lamb and then champ with our kale in it and 'pud' was a rhubarb Pavlova. Gorgeous. The talk and discussion was broad ranging and fascinating - FF turned out to have been a main mover in the old Anglo Irish agreement discussions way back, but then Chairman of the Good Friday Agreement discussions. He and Brian shared many friends and acquaintances. Brian has also got that 'Small holding in the future' in his dreams so he was delighted to come and stay on one and see how it all worked. A roaring success all round.

I'll leave it at that, I think, but just give you some links to bits and pieces mentioned

FF is on https://www.finegael.ie/our-people/senators/frank-feighan/

BJS is on Facebook as "Brian John Spencer: writer and artist" and the Project is on as "Ireland in 32 Days" where you will soon be able to see and hear "our bits" (we did interviews as well as having ourselves drawn plus Brian is off today to capture some Roscommon landscapes, I think in Boyle before he goes off to find his host for tonight in Co. Meath)

On Twitter he is @BrianJohnSpencer here there is already some stuff up

His website is http://www.brianjohnspencer.com/

Good Luck now

Keeping us Waiting

Twin lambs tonight for Polly, both boys.

More good news and relief in the sheep department after the curing of Lily by vet Aoife. This time it is Polly's turn to supply the story and she had us sweating on it a bit. I knew she was 'on' when she refused breakfast and spent the day displaying 3 other good clues of imminent lamb-exit; going off on her own for a lie down away from the 'flock', 'pawing' at the ground with a front hoof and looking very uncomfortable so that she restlessly sat down, stood up, moved around and sat down again.

I had agreed to head out for Sligo to help K-Dub to tip a van load (64 panels) of plaster board sheets and walk them all indoors, plus some bags of bonding, beading and other bits. I judged (correctly, I am pleased to say) that Polly would easily go 2 hours without needing help so I flew over there at 9 and headed back at 11 when the unloading was done. When I got back I found that there had been no progress and Polly was still sitting out in the far corner of the field but had been worryingly joined by the 3rd ewe (Myfanwy) who was sitting in a copy-cat stance and, to my mind, seemed very pink about the vulva. Were to have two lambings today?

A close inspection of Myf's back end told me that this was a false alarm and she was not yet bagged up at all, so maybe she was enjoying the wind-up potential. Polly then, kept me on tenter-hooks all day and only started to 'move' (passing a mucus plug and some amniotic sac) at around 5pm. This was so long after breakfast that Charlotte (who we keep standing-by on these occasions) advised an extra careful watch as she may have been in labour "all day". I contacted the vet, Aoife, to confirm that she would be available if needed and she was a bit more relaxed about the 'all day'; happy to think of "things" starting only at 5 pm.

Wetting the babies' heads. One dark and one light. It seemed
only fair.

Well, I am happy to report that "things" did indeed crack on a-pace from that point and Polly whooshed out both twins while we had nipped in for supper at 18:30. Both were out, up and suckling by 19:00 and I decided to leave them where they were for washing and bonding for half an hour before we gathered the family indoors. It was pitch dark but I could keep an eye using my rather dim head-torch and my presence would stop any sneaky foxes creeping up on Polly to steal the newborns. At one point Soldier the cat wandered over all curious and got himself charged and nearly stomped on for his pains by the ewe, so I suspect even a fox might have thought twice. Ah well, they are safe in the Tígín now, warm and dry on new straw and it has all gone quiet so I hope that signifies bellies nicely full of colostrum (and some 'crunch' and a welcome drink of water for Mum).

Rosie - one of Lily's lambs. These ladies are nearly 2 weeks old
now.

A new experience today for me, that of voting properly in an Irish General Election using the 'single transferable vote' system. My British readers may not know that here we do not use the 'put an X in the box', winner-takes-all, one MP per constituency method. Instead the constituencies can put more than one 'TD' into the parliament (up to 5, I think) so our voting sheets can have dozens of candidates on them and you vote by stating 1st, 2nd, 3rd etc preferences by putting numbers in the boxes; all the boxes if you like.

I will not try to explain the counting system here (though I do sort of understand it) but suffice to say that the winners get enough '1st preference' votes to make a quota, or hope to make quota by having themself as people's 2nd preference, or 3rd or whatever. Yes, I know. It actually works very well and is quite user friendly. I voted as far as my 6th preference. I am wary of trying to pretend to be expert in this and I usually avoid politics in this blog but here goes.

My problem is not the complexity of it all, but trying to work out who stands for what. In the UK you 'knew' that Labour stood for the working classes, the Tories for the management and affluent farmers, and the Libs were somewhere in between. Nothing so clear cut here. The two BIG parties, Fine Gael (FG) and Fianna Fáil (FF) are almost identical and the local wisdom is that you choose between them depending on how you stood in the Irish Civil War in the 20's. Were you 'pro-treaty' (i.e. were you in favour of accepting independence but with the 6 Northern Ireland counties partitioned off and left as British) or were you anti (i.e. you wanted the whole island to be independent).

A 'boreen'. One of this week's Lisacul 365 pics.

This was hugely contentious and split the country, communities, villages and even households, with father 'fighting' son and brother battling brother. A lot of that emnity and tension simmers on so it is a tricky subject to discuss but results in people voting for FF because "my Father did before me and my Grandfather before that" etc. I have asked many people and none of them can tell me, an incomer, why I should favour FG or possibly FF. One tongue-in-cheek view has it that they are all corrupt anyway but we like them that way and we ask them how they can help US specifically before we decide. More recently people seem to vote more on who last messed up the economy or depending upon who was 'on watch' when that hospital got closed.

Ash Bark

Throw into this mix the many and various minor parties and a wealth of independent (non-party) candidates to blur the lines even more and you have a confusing situation for a newcomer. There was one saving grace this time - a new website (MatchCandidate.IE) which asked you 30+ questions about all manner of contentious issues (the new water charges, legalising abortion, healthcare and so on) but then also asked all the candidates the same questions. The site compares your answers with the answers of the potential TDs and finds a best match (and next best etc). You can then drill down to find out WHERE you matched and decide from that whether to assign your 1,2,3 etc.

Anyway, suffice to say, I went armed with a list of 6 likely choices and only adjusted my list a bit at the crucial stage, pen in hand, in the booth. By now (22:12 pm) it is all over bar the counting (and then the negotiations between the parties which 'nearly won' to form a coalition (we rarely get anyone with an overall majority)). The count starts tomorrow at 09:00. History will tell you the rest. I am going back to being a non-political shepherd and off for a last check on Polly and the new babies

The Céide Fields

Looking down from the Visitor Centre to Killala Bay

No point in wasting these last few sunny days of our beautiful and welcome 'Indian Summer' so we decided that if Monday 22nd turned out nice, we would finally get ourselves off to a bit of touristing, specifically the Céide Fields (locals here pronounce it "Kay-juh"). The 'Heritage Ireland' website has it that...

"Beneath the wild bog-lands of North Mayo lies the Céide Fields, the most extensive Stone Age monument in the world, consisting of field systems, dwelling areas and megalithic tombs. The stone walled fields, extending over thousands of acres are almost 6,000 years old, the oldest known in the world. They are covered by a natural blanket bog with its own unique vegetation and wildlife. The Visitor Centre has won several awards, including the Gold Medal for architecture. It is located beside some of the most spectacular cliffs and rock formations in Ireland and a viewing platform is positioned on the edge of the 110 m high cliff."

45 minutes worth of duckboard walking protects the blanket
bog from the thousands of tourist feet.

This is fascinating stuff and came highly recommended by Anne and Simon as well as 'locals', but we'd never been. This despite it being only an hour and 20 minutes drive away in the beautiful county of Mayo. We are very remiss when it comes to local tourist attractions.

Award winning architecture.

Well, our day did indeed, dawn misty but clear above, so that we knew the haze would soon burn off. John Deere Bob, though, who is a confirmed politics-man and well in with the Fine Gael party, had promised he'd be bringing Councillor Michael Creaton round door to door, canvassing for support for FG's by-election candidate, Maura Hopkins. While we waited for that caravan to trundle through I had time to quickly buzz cut the dogs for the final time this year; they can now grow shaggy through the winter.

In the event the politicos re-scheduled or changed their route, so at 11 am, with the sun beautifully up, we were free to go. Our route for this one did not use the dreaded 'sat-nav', but instead used the home-spun technology of me looking at the map book and saying "Hey! There's a road here that looks interesting - it goes round a mountain and past a lake.... do you fancy that?" and Liz saying "Sounds good to me". We nipped up by Knock Airport, then through Swinford,Foxford and Ballina,to Killala Bay and Ballycastle.

Dogs at Lough Cullin

The dogs were with us, so we were always on the look out for good dog walks; we found the first at Lough Cullin,near Foxford. This is an inland lake, one of a pair with Lough Conn connected to the sea by the River Moy and we could not see how it would be tidal, but it managed to have a sandy beach and rocks just like a bit of coast, plenty of space for doggie exercise and no other people about. It even had an apparent 'upper tide line' where something a bit like marram grass was being used to stabilise the sand bank. Curious, but good for the dogs anyway.

Unusual lighting on these seaweed-covered rocks at Killala

Loaded back up we headed for Killala Bay and another nice empty beach at Ross Strand. Readers may recall that I painted my stock trailer with a paint called 'Killala Bay Blue' and wondered whether Killala Bay could really be THAT blue. Sorry - I still can't tell you, the tide was well out and the water was brown with sediment. We had a lovely stroll down the beach with the dogs loving being off the leads (they don't get many opportunities at home) and chasing in and out of the sea. Round the ragged rocks the ragged rascals ran? Nice cliffs showing exposed sedimentary rocks and a curious old building with what looked like a ruin of a boat house with a slipway, too for us.

An old boat house (?) at Ross Strand (Killala)

By now the dogs were well exercised (as well as covered in sand) and we were sure we could get away with a quick nip into the Céide Fields Visitor Centre. It wasn't hot (it had clouded over by now) and we left car windows part open; not ideal but we got away with it. Céide is a fascinating site and we surely did not do it justice; we are determined to return dog-less so that we can watch the audio-visual displays film and do the guided tour. The display materials in the centre were rather simplistic, presumably for children or tourists who have no idea about bog-land and Irish history, perhaps the film and tour will give us a bit more of the science and the archaeological explorations which are still continuing.

A sustaining lamb stew and dumplings to restore us.

All in all, we had a lovely day and we are glad we sneaked it in on the Monday, because that Indian Summer has now collapsed on us as forecast, with today being a proper autumn day with 10/10 cloud, a chilly breeze and even some splattering rain. We have retreated indoors to enjoy winter-warmer style foods and the chickens are taking themselves off to bed at 6:30 pm instead of the 7:30 they were doing on the sunny evenings. Every thing is wet again, though only enough to lay the dust at present.

Anne tells me that August was a record breaking wet month but that September had been rainless for nearly enough days to be officially a drought. Met Éireann's says that 'Absolute drought' is defined by 15 consecutive days where rainfall is less than 0.1 mm at rainfall measuring stations. We have surely had that by now.