As sure as eggs is eggs.

Having posted on Friday that Ireland had gone to the Referendum Polls on the 2 subjects of whether to abolish the Seanad (Senate) and whether to establish a Court of Appeal, it seems only fair that I now tell you the results. The Court of Appeal vote went through seamlessly so I presume that 'we' will now get that. The vote to abolish the Seanad had a more troubled passage and got a bit tangled up in arguments about how much money might actually be saved by getting rid of it. There were also some concerns about the double-negative wording on the voting paper which asked, more or less, 'are you in favour of the constitutional amendment' with in smaller writing in brackets added (which abolishes the Seanad) so you had to vote 'No' if you wanted to keep it. The amendment was narrowly defeated (51% plays 48%) so the Seanad stays and the Government gets a bloody nose plus, apparently a bill for €20 m which is how much it cost to stage the Referendum.

I should add, for my Irish readers, that I am not meaning to be at all superior about this, or belittling it in any way; I am fully aware that our own (UK) House of Lords is possibly even worse being made up of large proportions of people who are there by accident of birth (Hereditary Peers)  or by pure patronage (the 'Tony's Cronies', (Maggie's Mates and Dave's Faves?) thing and that there is no provision in our "constitution" (or precedent in law) for putting a possible abolition to the people in a Referendum. Nor can we vote our monarch in and out, of course, even if we wanted to. This statement probably just goes to show that I am no political scholar and should probably stay out of all this anyway!

I'll stick to the subject of eggs. There are all these eggs now starting to come our way. The geese are now laying one a day, the Sussex Pontes are still at it sporadically and the 8-Ball girls are starting to pump out eggs a bit too small for the Steak Lady's fancy box, so they live in a bowl on top of the box. So, it had to be done. Sooner or later we had to try doing the toast soldiers thing with a goose egg. Liz had been experimenting and reckoned that 6 minutes was the best timing bet. As to egg cups we put into action some small Greek coffee mugs which were a gift from Liz's (and Diamond's) friends on the Island of Poros, Vesalina and Maya. These are the perfect size for these big eggs. The results of this vote were wholly positive - the eggs were lovely! Possibly they might have done better on 7 minutes as the whites were not quite set but there were oceans of lovely soft yolk and we ended up feeling like we'd both had a 3-course meal and were completely put off any need for lunch!

We have had a further surprise from our allotment. I've been  nicking the odd leaf now and then from some big, vigorous plants I had assumed were some kind of flat leaved kale (very nice too). I went out a couple of days back to gather more leaves for supper and was surprised to find the spiky spiral shaped curds of Romanesco Cauliflower looking at me from the top of the plants! I knew I had sowed some Romanesco seed way back but had lost track of the plants or labels and assumed that they had been slugged , chicken-scratched or droughted out of existence. Liz was on-line like a shot looking for likely recipes (we didn't want to just go down the cauliflower cheese route) and found a surprising new way in the New York Times cookery pages, would you believe? The cauli got broken up into its florets, tossed in a little salt and hot oil, then baked in the oven (hot) for 20 minutes. They were beautifully savoury and different. Liz has also been getting into fruit-cake style tray bakes and sticky toffee puddings too, but that's another story. We are not starving here.

With the two existing freezers now nearly full of fruit and veg after a very good summer on the allotment and in the hedgerows it became obvious that we would need a third, 6 foot, stand-up freezer to cope with the lamb meat when that is ready. We nipped into town to our local 'white goods' outlet and ordered on (it was around €450) and met a whole new problem of which we had been blissfully unaware.

We had intended to stand this in the unheated concrete out-building we call the Tígín but the shop lady told us that you can no longer do that with domestic appliances. They now have fancy electronics in them which do not take kindly to the freeze/thaw/condensation of unheated rooms, so they quote a minimum working (ambient) temperature of between 10 and 16 degrees. Dryers are particularly a problem apparently, where the wash/dry cycle used to be controlled by a click-round, clockwork-style mechanism but are now electronic. Freezers for use outdoors are a whole different (and pricier) animal now. Ah well, back we came to shorten my bespoke shelving in the (nice warm) Utility Room to take the 60 cm freezer and its 10 cm breathing space.

In the garden we have now received our first batch of ordered Spring Bulbs via our joint-ordering system with Mentor Anne (saves postage). We are going this winter with some first crocuses  and fritillaries in the lawn, some more fancy tulips and a clump of our old Faversham gravel-garden chum, Nectaroscordum. We had already received a generous donation of daff and iris bulbs from Pud Lady. I also ordered some 'Electric' red onion sets for autumn planting so these too have gone in to the lovely warm soil of the allotment. It feels like my 2013/14 Season is well and truly started. We have also ordered 4 more trees for the orchard (we have space for 6, so I can cope with 2 more!) another Braeburn, a black sweet cherry, a crab apple and a mulberry.

Officially Dogs

Today my new adopted fellow countrymen all go to the polls to vote for or against the abolition of the Seanad (pronounced 'Shannad', this is the Senate or Upper House in the Parliament, equivalent to the House of Lords in the UK)  and to vote for or against the setting up of a new high level Court of Appeal just below the Supreme Court. I can only talk for myself here, being a recent 'blow in' and hearing only radio programmes, reading papers and talking to a few locals, but I get the impression that the Irish do not love their Seanad and see it as doing nothing but costing a great deal. The 'Keep it' camp would rather see it kept and possibly reformed but they must wonder why it has not already been reformed and wish that the work that it has presumably done had been better 'marketed'.

To my mind the abolitionists are more vociferous and 'out there' so may well win the day, the 'keep-its' seem to be quietly wringing their hands and anxiously awaiting how the lower house (The Dáil Éireann) and President would fare unchecked by the Seanad. Frightened too that once it is gone, there will be no bringing it back in new clothes, though it has been before, during De Valera's premiership (It was abolished in 1936 and reinstated in 1937). There is a ray of hope for them in that the current Government is not hugely popular after the economic crash and now austerity measures, and the campaign to abolish the Seanad is seen as a campaign sponsored by them. There may be an anti-Government lobby voting against abolition just to make their point. Liz has, of course, gone down to do her democratic duty. I. as a Brit, am not allowed to vote in such Constitutional Change matters (Referendums); I can only vote in local, general and Euro elections.

Closer to home, we have been getting all official with our dogs, and buying them licences. This is another piece of law that falls firmly into the slightly amusing 'Irish RM' school of Civil Disobedience. I had never heard of the licencing system (which I am sure the UK did away with when we were still in pounds, shillings and pence and it cost, if I recall, 37 and a half pee in new money!). Ask the man in the street about it and they give you a pitying look and say "Mmm Yeah... Right-Oh". You get the impression that not a lot of people are inclined to pay it. It is possibly up there with the requirements to pay Property Tax (Ireland's new, but very light, equivalent to the UK's Poll Tax), to Register your septic tank with the Water Board, to ear-tag your sheep and goats and submit movement paperwork to the Ministry, to have your car NCT'd (= MOT'd) or to declare it as Off-Road on the new official 'Statutory Off Road Notices' (SORNs) and to stop cutting turf in your local turf-bog. We asked a friend in the local Post Office whether people pay it and she said, with a wry smile that "some do and some don't". We are not, anyway, the only people paying. Our forms came from well down the pad and have numbers in the 2,347,000 range!

For our sins, we tend to pay these things, probably to a degree seen as ridiculously compliant by some. Our septic tank is registered, our dogs are licenced, we are trying to get both cars NCT'd as you'll know etc. Our luck has been the sort that, in the past, would have got us caught out straight away. We once bought a TV, 3 days from the end of the month and the local (UK) Post Office lady even recommended risking it for 3 days or we'd have to pay a full month for them. Liz argued her down and paid, walked home, came in the front door and put the new licence down on the shelf just inside the door, then walked back into the kitchen only to hear a knock on the door. Yep. TV Licence inspector man! We assume that Curry's, who sold us the TV, had to inform the licence people that we had now bought one, and their man had nothing else on that day, or it was some kind of amazing coincidence. Liz can remember saying  to him "You are not going to believe this, but..."

Meanwhile, in local news, John Deere Bob has killed his tractor. The power steering has given up the ghost, and the beast has had to be towed away as far as Ballintubber to be fixed. We are helping the old boy out for now with a bit of driving around and he has thanked us with a very generous bag of nice dry turf. We have been able to light some good fires in the Living Room much to the delight of the dogs who are basking in the heat. It's not actually that cold yet, so we do not need to light the range every day for the hot water and radiators. That is a lovely room and right below the main bedroom, so at the end of the evening we can retreat upstairs and still enjoy the heat, convecting up the stairwell and conducting through the floor.

I have already posted that I am now the Editor of the newsletter for the Cambria (Sailing Barge) Trust. I continue to be the Website Manager and blogger for these guys and as a result of that I get some nice barge films passed to me for review. Most recently this included a new film (Noble Life) by new film-maker (formerly some manner of Artistic Designer for TV adverts), Simon North. This is a good film and well worth the buying (£12.50) if you are at all interested in barges, being 1 hour 42 minutes long, as well as being the only DVD I know of with our girl on the picture! I have reviewed it on the website if you are interested - so for more detail go to http://www.cambriabargecharter.co.uk/?p=2022

That's all for today.