Sheana is away

Well Sheana got put on the Dublin bus about 4pm and we had a couple of spots of rain by about quarter past, she really took the weather with her this time it was glorious for the five days she was here most of the days had crystal clear blue skies and the temperature was more like we might have in July or August not March. I'm quite brown. Also got bitten by something which has made my leg swell a bit, my Mom suffers the same way I shall have to remember to get her to take a really good insect repellent she has with her as I havent seen it over here, its actually a skin care product lol.

An old bothy on the river, no not the pic bellow thats Sheana.

I got a lawnmower this week and cut the grass for the first time, its brilliant has a clutch and sort of pulls me along, considering the amount of grass and the price I would have been charged if I got someone in to do it  it was a kind of necesity. Anyway it will keep me fit. Or is the word "get".

Bush Fires

Well when we went to bed last night the hillside across from us was alight and at 0245 this morning I awoke to the acrid smell of burning, jumped out of bed and went outside to check my wee forest wasnt a heap of charchoal. Thankfully the burn hadnt crossed the river as everything is tinder dry here now. Absolutely amazing weather for March with temps in the 20's, hazy sunshine and a blood red sunset to round off the days. Sheana ans I have been gardening all morning and yesterday and are sun burnt, we also walked across the bog and up the river with the dogs for a bit and am knackered now lol shes away to bed for a wee while.

Last April was like this and the rest of the summer was a write off I hope this isnt our only nice spell.

Jessy to the vet

Well I took Jessy to the vets today at Barna which is past Spiddal where my pal Mark lives, so I dropped in to see him on the way home. Jessy just has some conjunctivitus in her eye but I wanted it checked out just incase it was something worse. Anyway got some eyedrops for her and Mark gave me a few photos from the rugby game we went to in Dublin.

We were seated right at the back in the very topmost seats in the ground

Mark enjoyed the final score more than I did lol

I got a Log Horse to cut my firewood on, they had a choice of two models I really liked the look of the one priced at E299.00 but got the E30 one and I have just chopped about a ton of timber on it since getting home. Its much safer and eassier to use the stand and the wooden one I have weighs a ton and I was fed up carting it round the acreage plus its on its last legs so to speak. I almost forgot to mention that i,m blogging from outdoors in my shorts this afternoon as its sunny and warm, my freind Lynne from Ontario was having a heat wave over there the other day so perhaps this is the same weather system.

Wooden spoon

Well Scotland won, the wooden spoon. Ireland lost as well to a rampant English team, not my weekend rugby wise. I went out for a couple of beers but it's not much craic on ones own so I didn't stay long.
Sheana is coming over for a few days next Sunday and she has a list of her favorite recipes that we have cooked before for her so I shall have to get stores in. Had a nice stir fry this evening with some fresh scallops I got yesterday from the scallop contact. The last ones we got Angie went and put the shells in the wee fridge and they ended up smelling something awful.

I have a couple of websites I,m working on and it won't be long till the house sale goes through so I shoul really tee up the window installer. I got a quote to have the Subaru commercialized as well so it should get done before April when the tax is due again. They have to remove the back seats and level off the floor as well as putting in metal in the back windows, sounds drastic but there's only two of us and the dogs and the ford has four seats if we have visitors. If I don't commercialize it it costs over two thousand every year in road tax.

green pints

Well we have had 6 dry days on the trot although the sun wasnt out for hardly any of that time it was still great to let things dry out a bit. I had a good weekend away in Dublin, wrong team won but being a Scotland supporter, I'm used to barracking for the runner up. I ended up going back to the hotel with a headache about 11pm but Mark managed till 0330 which was a good 13.5 hr session. We were out in the Temple Bar area of Dublin which is packed full of pubs and people, the pubs were ok but I get a bit claustraphobic in crowds to be honest. I should get myself a kilt.

This weekend is a biggy too, have Scotland v Italy, Ireland v England, and Wales v France and St Paddy thrown in to be sure. I think Angie has a four day weekend so I might take this oppertunity to designate her the driver on Saturday heheh. I painted the spare bedroom and the porch and the chimney breast in the lounge here. I stripped the wallpaper off first and the walls are in good condition which is handy as there is a lot of wallpaper in this house.

hike through a bog

Well I had a walk down to the main road then up the river across a ford then across the bog and up the hill. Was a strenous walk and Gus decided it wasnt time to go home and that he would rather run back through the bog and go bark at the water like some sort of demented insane pain in the hon. Jessy and I walked home and got the car and by the time we got back he had decided to come. Needless to say I'm not impressed at my dog handling skills yet again. It would have been a nice walk apart for that.

I washed the walls in the spare bedroom and gave two of them a coat of paint, the existing paint is a sort of greenish yellow, which may have been very fashionable in 1970, but I have updated it with a sort of light tan colour. I'll do the other walls tomorrow. There is a crack in the ceiling in there that needs fixing too. Some of the ceilings I am going to have replastered. A lot of the rooms are papered so I think I shall invest in a wallpaper stripper steamer and maybe sell it on after I finish decorating. I wanted to give that bedroom a lift as we will have Sheana and my Mom an Dad, using it over the next few months.

Heading across to Dublin to watch Scotland V Ireland at rugby this weekend with my pal Mark, staying over Saturday night for a boys night out, and then back to Galway on Sunday to watch the second game England v France in the town. Should be good I hope Scotland play well.

Last April

Well last April was the best month of the year, the weather was terrific and we went and stayed away on the boat and everything, this Month so far has been great too, reminds me why I chose this part of Ireland to live in when its like this. I have my fingers crossed we will have a good Spring / Summer this year, I want to take the yacht across to the Aran Islands and stay over at some point.

The dogs will have to go to the kennel which they dont seem to mind for short spells. The Aran Islands Oileáin Árann are a group of three islands located at the mouth of Galway Bay.From west to east they are: Inishmore  Árainn Mhór/Inis, the largest; Inishmaan  Inis Meáin/Inis Meadhóin, the second-largest; and Inisheer Inis Thiar/Inis Oírr/Inis Oirthi, the smallest. Irish is the main spoken language on all three islands, and is the language used naming the islands and their villages and townlands much as it is on the mainland here. The islands' geology is mainly limestone and is thus closely related to The Burren in Co. Clare (to the east), not the granites of Connemara to the north. This is most obvious in the construction of the walls around the fields. Inishmore has a good harbour sheltered from the SW and West. The wee boat that was left here at the pond will do me for fishing out of as well, I'll need a hand lift it up to the trailer before May as the Mayfly season on Loch Corrib requires my attention this year.

walk up the river

Well it was a nice day although cold and we had a walk up the Costello / Fermoyle river. Didnt see any fish jump but there are some great boulder strewn stretches that will have fish flying to get upstream.

We went up as far as a bothy, after that there were livestock so we didnt want the dogs bothering them, anyway I had to take a pic of the bothy due to the size of the chimney in comparison to the size of the building. There was a nice wee glade at the bothy with a tree that looked like it was growing out of a boulder.

Everyone enjoyed the walk and the glade will be a nice spot for a picnic in the summer.

I think Jessy is dreaming about it as she is twitching like mad in her dream.

nice weather

Well I have had three nice days on the trot, things have dried out a bit and I got lots done. I have to make a fence to hide the sewage tank and a gully and cut a bit of bamboo down so am thinking how I might use it to make the fence. I made a fence before in Sydney of latice, it was a grooved wood frame that the latice slid into, I might see if I can get some this weekend and try inserting the bamboo in the groove. I also need to check out lawnmowers as the grass is starting to grow.

The weather looks like its going to change for the worse over the weekend, but I could do with a break anyway so will just have to do something different. I got Adobe Master Collection CS5.5 software which contains a host of programs including photoshop one of the images I had a play with was a pastel drawing I did of Captain Cooks landing place.