Well we got the Cairnryan / Larne ferry at 0730 this morning, had a smooth crossing of the North Channel and a nice drive down through N Ireland to Dublin then across the country picking up the dogs at 1500 and getting home about 1700. The house is cold after not having heating on for long this week so I have a fire and the heating on.

I'm looking forward to getting back on my diet and walking again as I didnt do much this week. It was great to see my oldies and Keith and Marianne and I came home with a car full of pictures and bits and bobs.

Dont whinge about our public transport

The world's biggest annual migration of people has begun in China. The transport ministry said the number of passenger trips on trains, planes, boats and buses was expected to reach 2.6bn in the period before, during and after the holiday. That is 11.6% trips more than last year. When interviewed a 29 yr old construction worker said 'I'm lucky this year because I can leave Shanghai for home earlier, last year I spent five days trying to get a ticket,' he said, adding he had to wake up at 4am to line up for a ticket before the daily allotment sold out. I hate queing myself. Most of the passengers are migrant workers who travel home to see their families only once a year for the country's most important holiday.

Graverobbers have stolen the body of one of Italy's most famous and much-loved television personalities, Quiz king Mike Bongiorno was the Italian equivalent of Bruce Forsyth and hosted several TV game shows over a career spanning more than 50 years, Many suspect that the robbers' motive is to hold the body for ransom. Weird ehh. Aparently the choice was Mike or Berlisconi but they feared noone would pay a ransom for Berlo.


A lucky penguin is enjoying being a local celebrity in South America after taking a wrong turn and becoming separated from his colony.

Dubbed Tomas by locals, he became separated from his fellow penguins and found himself wandering the beaches of the Lima, the Peruvian capital. Picked up by police not long after, Tomas was taken to a local station where authorities have been keeping a close eye on him. During his stay, officials were able to determine that Tomas is a Humboldt, a species of penguin native to the coasts of Chile and Peru.
Tomas is expected to be reunited with his colony on an island off Peru shortly. Either that or give him a marmalade sandwich and a duffle coat.

Wales - Kirkguzeon - Luing and a side trip

Well what do you think of Wales Rob? "Splendigedig" I'd say and then harp on about the place names. The most descriptive place name ever has to belong to the Welsh, created in the nineteenth century as a marketing ploy to attract tourists to Angelsey, naming the local village Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch. This is the longest British place name which translates as The church of St. Mary in the hollow of white hazel trees near the rapid whirlpool by St. Tysilio's church of the red cave. In Scotland it would be called Hazel ban and in England it would be St Mary's in Ireland who knows but it sure wouldn't have a postcode.

My pal Keith, now to be known as Rodney, has a yellow Reliant Robin same as Dell boy's and he goes on a trip anualy to make money for charity along with 10 other Reliant Robins around Scotland at 30 MPH

All I need is some watches or Dells to sell ehh. Was great to have seen Keith and I had a crackin feed of haggis at his local it being the 25th an all, hey wee coorin timerous beastie.

From Rodders house its a few hours drive North to my parents house on Luing were we drank a toast to Australia day among other things. Awoke to a perfect morning and the best view in the world across the sound of Luing

Had a run down to my wee sisters place near Tarbert

And got attacked by a wee monster

Candles a good feed and two hotels

Angie got a candle making kit for Christmas and we had a bash at making some, they turned out well.

I’m going to try making a mold of a green clover leaf which I can then include in a white candle, if it works out ok I’ll make a load and try selling them.

We stayed in a wee hotel near Landsdown road in Dublin on Sunday night which was cheap and cheerful and clean with a tiny room packed full of telephones and a bed, not sure why three telephones were required but it was ok, this Welsh hotel we are in tonight is more basic, it has no phones but is packed full of beds (4). Its sort of Dorothy Perkins circa 1973, faded flowers.

I took a drive up to Snowdonia and had a walk in the national park.

Wales seems to have a heap more wildlife than Ireland, maybe there are fewer guns, I saw heaps of wild goats and buzzards.

Fog, a Subaru and a guiness in a castle

Well the Forester (Subaru) had to have its 12000 km service yesterday and the nearest place is in a town called Ballinrobe in Co Mayo, apart from having the only Subaru service garage it also has a horse racing track and claims to be the angling Mecca of Ireland but of course we all know that in fact Oughterard is the Mecca. I took my mate Mark with me and we filled in the time waiting for the car to be serviced playing darts and sampling a few of their Guinness, then after 2.5 hours we continued to Ashford Castle at Cong, there was no guard at the gate fleecing tourists for 20 Euro parking fees so we went in and sampled their Guinness. Ashford has a 5 star rating and it looked quite eerie in yesterdays fog, ohh it was foggy yesterday that has nothing to do with the Guinness.

So we priced staying there and the very cheapest deal they do midweek in the winter is E352 a night they do include dinner and breakfast in that price but you have to stay in an outside dunny and help with the washing.

I have lost over 1.2 kg since New Year and had to walk a bit looking for pubs with a dart board yesterday and I didn't struggle. After we got back to Oughterard we had to sample a few Guinness in the local pub Breanachs and we had a good bit of craic to be sure, at one point Mark said he would eat his hat if I got the double 9 with my first dart which of course went straight in the middle :) so I had a long and meaningful discussion with the chef how best to prepare hat, the owner interjected that he could maybe just use the hat at slop out time to do the floors and that would give it some flavour. Today I'm thinking of cooking up a cheap hat for him and taking it round in a casserole.

Hard frost

Well here we go with more photos of dogs and trees, sorry

The search is on for fragments of a meteorite which blazed across Irish skies yesterday evening.

The meteor - described as 'huge' by Astronomy Ireland - is known as a fireball.
Astronomy Ireland says it is likely to be a piece of a comet or asteroid that passed near Earth's orbit sometime in the past.
It appeared in the moonlit sky at approximately 6pm, or shortly after.
If it survived the fall to Irish soil, keen treasure hunters may fetch hundreds of euro per gram of meteorite if found.
Astronomy Ireland says people all over the country are reporting sightings, most of them are being rung in from pubs on borrowed mobile phones. ok I made that bit up again.

Arnie

Arnold Swartzeneger is set to return to acting after playing at politics for the last 7 years, the 63-year-old actor revealed he is no longer able to do all the action roles that made him famous.
He said: "In the future I have to adapt my roles to my age. Clint Eastwood also has done it in the same way. Extreme fighting or shooting is not possible anymore. I want to be more encouraged as an actor and I believe that I can manage this challenge". I'd have thought shooting would have still been an option but maybe he has bad arthritus in his finger or summat.

Brian Cowan should give acting a go he would make an excellent Troll. On that note I should try out myself for the new Free Willy movie. Actually I'm shedding weight as we speak, since New Year I have only missed a couple of days hiking in the woods and I have been on the excersise machine the last three days and have been eatting porridge and soup only during the day and no bread.

Taiwan’s president Ma Ying-jeou expressed his frustration today after an unusually public test firing of 19 surface-to-air and air-to-air missiles became a national embarrassment.
Nearly a third of the missiles missed their targets, incurring the wrath of Mr Ma, who presided over the test, and raising new questions about Taiwan’s readiness to defend itself against Chinese attack. 6 of the missiles hit N Korea the other sank a canoe in Malasayia. Mr Ma's wrath included a violent jumping up and down on the spot and squinting, ok I made that last bit up but hey the news is just so boring ehh.

Its a bonny day here, 7C and clear blue skies, i think the forecast is good for the next few days too, my wee knees are really white but its not exactly shorts weather yet lol.

Happy Birthday to meeeeeeeee

Happy Birthday to me, Happy Birthday to me, Happy Birthday to me, ohh and Happy Birthday to Dad, and Happy Birthday to Marianne (my wee sis). My Mother arranged to give birth to my younger sister and I on my dads birthday but was out a day both sides, It may have been a ploy to save on washing birthday dishes I'm not sure. Mariannes bd is on the 13th Dads on 14th and mine on the 15th Jan. I googled for celebrities with my birthday and to be honest the 15th is pretty scarce of quality celebrity birthdays James Nesbit, Martin Luther King and Lloyd Bridges were the only ones I knew. Mind you the Queen could also be a 15th girl she has that many birthdays who would know.

My birthday started off with Angie telling me she had forgotten the date and Gus having had an accident on the dining room floor which had me gagging. Angie was just kidding she had actually got me a dart board which was very nice of her just a shame about her sense of humour, as I cried, no I didn't it was the smell of dog poo in the morning that had my eyes watering, who need Napalm.

balls and sore backs

 

 

 

From this

To this    

 

You add this and wait 2 mins.

I’ve gone and pulled a muscle in my back while I was hoovering the car, that will teach me, now I have a hot water bottle on it and am boiling. It was probably acting like a rabbit started the problem ehh.

So one day, all of the animals came together and made the following deal: Each will tell a joke, and if everyone doesn't laugh at it then they would kill the joke teller. (I don't know why they did this... maybe they were hungry?)So anyway, the Rabbit went first. The Rabbit told this great joke. All of the animals were laughing hysterically, rolling on the floor and slapping their knees (if they had knees). All that is except for the Hippopotamus.

So, what could they do... the Hippo did not laugh. They had to kill the Rabbit. After promptly doing so, they gave the next turn to the lion.The Lion told a really dumb joke, that was not funny at all. All of the animals just sat there and stared, but the Hippo started laughing a tremendous laugh. The animals asked the Hippopotamus: "Why are you laughing? The Joke wasn't funny."

To which the Hippo replied: "Didn't you get the Rabbit's Joke?"

walking like a rabbit

Well I had a couple of drinks on Friday night watching a dvd and after it finished I went for a pee, whilst doing my thing I happened to glance down, as you do, and noticed my socks were half off, my heels were bare and the socks flopping around like I had rabbit feet or flippers on. Call me Thumper if you must but I left the socks like that.

Not quite sure why I shared that with yous but hey it was the most exciting thing that happened this weekend. My next excitement is my birthday on the 15th which should be mindblowingly exciting ok I exagerated a wee bit lol, the older one gets the less brilliant birthdays seem to be, I was at sea on my 40th on Bass Strait bobbing around on a tug. In 2012 I'm 50 sheeeeze, if we are spared I think a party is in order for that one.

I have a feeling this year will be good, its off to a good start with a busy new year and good weather. I have the prospect of replacing the boat I sold before coming here with a Magregor 26 X yacht trailer sailor/ power boat. Hopefully a ship surveyor who works with Angie will have a look at her for me this week. I'm going to lose weight and increase my fitness and hopefully my bike hire and computer assistance will take off.

Ok  have to dash, got a big greasy hamburger with bacon cheese and egg and french fries waiting and then a day of lying on the couch, kidding kidding I'm away to jump on the home gym, do a washing, walk the dogs and clean the kitchen, Take care all.

Carrots

Researchers at St Andrews and Bristol universities studied the relationship between skin colour and attractiveness, and found people with a yellow skin hue were perceived as particularly healthy and attractive.They also established for the first time that yellow pigments, or carotenoids, from certain fruit and vegetables played a key role in producing yellowness in skin. I have made a pumpkin and carrot soup for tomorrow so even though we are extremely unfit we may look yellow, oops healthy.

An overly high concentration of cancer-causing dioxin has been detected in samples of meat for the first time after it emerged that farm animals were given contaminated feed in Germany. Some of the eggs from those farms were then transported to the Netherlands. "These eggs were mixed with other non-contaminated eggs to make pasteurised liquid egg. This pasteurised liquid egg has been distributed to the UK," To get sick from eating the end product ie quiche you would have to eat 4 tons a day for the next 65 years however if you had a large carrot salad on the side you would take on a yellow hue and look healthy.

The big diet is on so I hope not to bore everyone with tales of weight loss and carrots, I watched a show today on TV called half ton teenager which cheered me up no end as the leads were 800lb, actually it was really disturbing even though they did have nice yellow skin.

Old building and more bull

A week of amateur bullfights, commonly known as 'Corralejas', left 48 people injured in Colombia, local media has reported. Every January hundreds of amateur bullfighters risk their lives jumping into an arena to taunt bulls in Colombia's unruly bull festival.

It is described by locals as an explosive and sometimes lethal mixture of alcohol, music, violence and machismo. In Glasgow Scotland they have a similar event its called Friday night.

It was new age technology combined with 5,000-year-old Stone-Age engineering. Yesterday, for the first time, the winter sun lighting the passage tomb at Newgrange, Co Meath, was beamed live around the world.

Newgrange is the oldest building in the world. It was built 500 years before the pyramids and 1,000 years before Stonehenge.Although other passage tombs survive there is nowhere quite like Newgrange. It was built over 5,000 years ago close to the river Boyne by Neolithic farmers.

Ireland's A&E departments have this week seen unprecedented numbers of patients lying on trolleys and not in hospital beds and the 1.35 million VHI health customers will be paying an additional 15-45% on their premiums from the 1st of February for the privilege.

ok I didnt last

Well I didn't make it all night, the dogs got let into the snug about 7 pm lol but the discipline worked and they are back to behaving like my dogs again.
I'm quite Up today as I got a computer fixup job last night which took me all of 3 mins to fix :) I worked it out at 600 Euros an hour as I charged 30 Euros all I need is 20 jobs an hour, so far I have had three in Ireland. I think a big push on the leaflet delivery front is required.

Its a lovely sunny day here which probably means sub zero temps tonight again but the forecast isn't as bad as we had leading up to Christmas if we do get another cold snap. The place is in a mess here with Dublin and other parts of the country on water restrictions still due to burst mains etc, the N Irish water minister (Laurence MacKenzie) got the gu mach but here in S Ireland we tend to award incompetency with promotion, when I tried googling the Irish Water board CEO I got diverted to Mr Tony Kileen who is the Minister of Defence which doesn't surprise me as there are no post codes here.

My neighbour Mark had to pay for Sky tv same as me as he couldn't get a picture free to air, (bloody cheek they have charging for a tv licence) anyway the install guy arrived and took about 4 hours to NOT set it up day before yesterday, apparently there was a problem with the set top card which will take 5 to seven working weeks to re post, they told him "days" but I know the truth. They say sarcasm is the lowest form of wit It's not, perhaps they  are as deliberately confused as the great Frank Muir on an old BBC episode of My Word, who wound up a typically long-winded anecdote with the phrase "the bun is the lowest form of wheat". Personally I tend to think that wit is the highest form of sarcasm.

bad dogs

Well the last of my visitors are away home and I have taken down my christmas decorations and had a tidy up. I had a fun festive season and it was great to see everyone :)

Sheena and family left at 0600 this morning and I made the mistake of letting the dogs come back to bed with me for a wee while, that and the fact that they had been getting overly petted and such for the last few weeks I think was what led to the misbehaviour today so they are both on a "time out", Jessy is locked in the garage and Gus in the kitchen. I was quite pleased with their progress up until Christmas but today Gus did his run away to the water and get hyper/ not listen but bark deal and Jessy hyped by his barking at nothing, barked at a bloke who wandered along the path giving him a bit of a scare, then she rolled in muck again and Gus wouldnt come. The "time out" reminds the dog of their place in the pack, Jessy is in the garage as she is showing signs of dominance towards both Gus and myself and the man in the woods, she will stay there until later, then will get the cold shoulder with no petting or looking her way and she and Gus can stay in the kitchen tonight.

We found Rudolf

I heard o the Irish news that Rudolf had gone AWOL well we can all rest peacefully now as I found him in Cong

I’d forgotten just what a northern hemisphere Hogmanay /New year is like and its been grand remembering and having friends / family around this one although  Intensive slimming is now required I just saw some photos and wow I’m the size of a small hippo.

 

My pal Keith left today destined for my parents to carry on the New Year tradition and drink them out of house and home too lol. Mind you he will have about three and end up like asleep ehh Keithy lololol

As per usual I was last man standing, the one good thing about being the size of a small hippo is you have the capacity to drink them all under the table.

 

 

 

 

Got some nice shots on our run to Cong

Angie is back to work tomorrow she flies over to England

  

but Sheena Rus and Sacha are staying for another couple of days I think.