windmills and new floors

Well the floors are down and I spent today moving furniture and rearanging the house. Its great to have floor coverings back and it looks really good. I still have a bit of painting to do and insulation to go in the loft which would be nice to do before the cold weather, I have a fire on tonight so it is really cosy.

Angie's company did a double take when she said she wasnt going to Dubai and decided to keep her on in the same position here in Galway so thats a bit of relief.

There is a planning proposal for a wind farm development of 14 windmills between me and the 12 pins mountains basically right in my view so I was at a meeting the other night of locals opposing the farm. I'm a "blow in" and the whole meeting was in Irish so I would have been more constructive if I had gone to a meeting of North Korean butterfly conservationists, but I did email the action committee with my points of view today.
The developers had a display in the local hall with photos of how the windmills would look and of course they are in 50 mm wideangle so they look tiny, I showed a comparison that I found online with windmill photos of the same area taken with 50mm and 75mm which is more like what we actually see as a comparison and suggested they ask the developers for shots in 75mm and when they refuse, as they will, we can quote their unwillingness. The Scottish Heritage have a court case just now insisting that windfarm developers show true representative photos in 75mm rather than wideangle shots as they are deceptive.

 I went to the movies aand had dinner out last night as Angie was at a going away party for some of her workmates that have been made redundant, the movie was the Sweeny with Ray Winston and was full on violence and swearing and the movie theatre had a grand total of 5 people in it. Last night was the 27th and "Arthurs Day" so the town was full of drunks staggering all over the place when we drove home about 2300.

I did a website for Warmer Homes Ireland and have started one for the Internal Defibrillator Accosiation of Scotland this week and fixed up a PC so it wasnt a wasted week. The weather hasnt been great but whats new ehh and the time that it was calm the bliddy midges were back.

I'll give them "blow in " got as much right as anyone to complain about wind farms here.

Seafood

Well I got a website design job for a company called Breizon who process and export shell fish, when I was down at their office getting information and such the owner gave me samples of the produce so we had seafood last night curtisy of them. I made prawns in a 1970's style Maree Rose sauce and garlic crab claws for a starter then crab meat spagattini with garlic, chilli, tommatoes, a wee bit tom paste and a couple of spoons of lemon/ lime marmalade which turned out nice. Its nearly impossible to buy fresh Irish shellfish here unless you have a contact on a boat as it is all sent abroad. I think if he has an online shop selling things like razor fish, lobster, whelks, crab and scampi he would do really well.

Tonight we are back to mince and potatoes lol. I paid for the hardwood flooring today and tomorrow the electrician is back. Friday the tiler is here to use the remaining tiles from the kitchen floor in the spare bedroom onsuite. I have to drive to Monivea tomorrow to see a customer for another website so am quite busy.

 

Had to move the yacht today as they are sandblasting and painting in the marina so I have a berth not in the corner this time.

How handy is cow dung ?

Well while out walking today the two and a half miles from the marina the boat is at up to the house, i observed some cattle near the river and got to thinking, as you do, about dung. Now amongst some of the weird things I discovered about the pat online was a website at www.cowpieclocks.com , as the name implies they produce clocks out of cow dung, not sure how they get the cow to eat the clock right enough but what a wonderful present for Jeffrey (my most adored ex boss) it says everything ehh. "we took your crap now take ours" "congratulations, you dung great in your field"
As well as clocks I found out that dung is used for making ,Pens, plant pots, milk jugs, fuel, concrete, Cow dung vanilla for shampoo, Tooth powders, Facial cleansers, Incense, bio gas, housing, fire lighters, and the list goes on, my favorite is the clocks though.

As well as my walk I managed to hack down a few hundred square meters of bracken so am noe enjoying a can of pear cider before dinner, making a pork roast with roasted veg and creamed leaks which should be nice. The electrician put in the RCD and new lights yesterday and will finish off on Tuesday, it takes about a week for the wood flooring to be ordered so I shall do that tommorow.

Ohh there is a cow dung bingo game here in Ireland too, they mark out a field in squares and sell them for 5 euros each then a cow is introduced into the field and well let's say motheR nature takes her course and the winner is the person in who's square the nature,s course is taken, clever ehh and great for also introducing patience into out hectic lifestyle.

Nice weather and woohoo the midgies have gone

Welllllllllll the midges have dissapeared this week, its been cooler and thank goodness they have all taken off for Dubai or somewhere, its been great as between jobs I have managed to get some clearing done again. This last couple of months were hell in the garden with the midgies I have never seen anything like them, for next summer we may invest in one of those machines that emit co2 and use infra red to attract them then zap them.

I had a couple of computer jobs this week and the websites are starting to move too so that is good, the electrician is coming tomorrow and hopefully the floors will get laid this coming week too. I shall have to go out and buy the wood flooring this weekend.

How can they not trace who posted the anti Islam video on youtube? could it be that they havent really tried? A trailer for the anti-Islamic video was posted on YouTube in July. An Arabic-language translation began circulating in the Middle East in recent days. Clips from the movie depict the Prophet Muhammad as a villainous, homosexual, child-molesting buffoon, among other overtly insulting claims. Free speech is all very well but inciting violence via this sort of video is, in my mind a  criminal act and the people responsible should be punished. Mind you the violence, put down to the video, in parts of the middle east, is also to be condemed I suppose it highlights how uneducated the protestors are and how keen they are to attack the Satanic American. Anywayyyyyy !!!

The marina are letting me leave the boat there all year for less than the summer rate which is good as last March was the best month of the year and I didnt have the boat in the water untill the start of May so I missed a good chance to go cruising, I shall have to take her out at some point to antifoul the bottom but there is no growth yet. I will just do the antifoul with her on the trailer on the slipway I launched her at. One never knows maybe we will have an Indian summer. Its windy today but if it drops down a bit I may get some fishing in this weekend.

cutting trees and cycling

Well I must be feeling better ehh cut a couple of trees down and chopped them for firewood and also just back from a cycle, was kerry pakered coming back up the hill right enough.

I took a couple of pics of the kitchen tiles. They look better in real life.

Well done Andy

Wtg Andy Murray, he looked more relieved than happy after winning the USA Open tennis but he doesnt smile a lot anyway. What a summer it has been for sport the Tour de France, Olympics and the ParaOlympics, USA Open, Volvo Ocean race concluded at Galway. London must have been an awesome city to live in this year with the Queens Jubilee as well.

Today is a lot cooler and I had the radiators on for an hour this morning for the first time, today has heavy showers and sunny intervals and it blew hard last night. Today is more painting and housework and I may get to do some firewood between the showers. The electrician is either coming tomorrow or Thursday to install an RCD, new ceiling pendants, new lights in the kitchen, globe type light fittings in the bathrooms, a couple of sockets and make any junction boxes in the loft safe. I think he will take two days. Next week the floor in the living room is getting done, I will have to go out this weekend and get the materials, going for a light oak engineered wood floor which should really look great in here.

I,m looking at taking the Subaru to the UK to try and sell it as noone in Ireland wants a 2.5 ltr petrol car as the road tax is over 2000 Euros a year, its not as easy as I was hoping as the car was built for Australia not the EU so it doesnt have a conformity ticket. Having a deisel vehicle here is the only way to go.

Furniture moving

Well I had a good day today moving furniture around the house, took my bed to bits and put it and the bedroom furniture into the onsuite bathroom. Put the bookcase and big lounge into the bedroom making it a snug for when the lounge is getting its new floor done. I wanted to have as much furniture out of there so I can paint the ceilings and not have to struggle moving things around. All that is left is the tv and a couch and chair so tomorrow I shall give it a paint. We will use the spare bedroom for a while and after the floor is done I will move the furniture back in and start on stripping the bedroom walls so I can paint them.

The lounge looks huge with hardly any furniture in it and is echo filled. The kitchen tiles look brilliant and all that needs done in there now is three lights to go up and a wall to be filled again and painted and do the section of bench top with the sink in it but I may leave that a wee while. It looks like a wet week coming up so painting will keep me amused.

Angie's company is moving to Dubai and she was offered to keep her job if we moved there, I really love camels, sand and temps in the high 40,s and tea towels ohh and no bacon  and the fact that the fairer sex are treated better than family pets so I was really really disappointed when she said she might give it a miss. Things may be tight if she is out of work but we haven't starved a winter yet so we are not panicking ohh there was that one winter we had to gather whelks in the snow in Skye but we weren't really starving. Gus will really enjoy being at the beach anyway regardless of if it's snowing. Whelks sell for about  170 cents a kilo about 70 euro a bag but I haven't seen many on my visits to the shore here lol.

Ohh well I may go have myself a bacon sanny a dram and go stand outside in the drizzle and 11C for a while before bed.

Kitchen tiles

Well I have the tiler here today and tomorrow and the floor in the kitchen is looking great already, there are three different sized tiles layed in a pattern they look like marble but arent, better for cleaning and they wont scratch as easy apparently. I will take photos after he finishes.

I took the yacht trailer back up to the house yesterday, a friend was storing it for me while my driveway was busy with builders vans, and I gave it a coat of paint, started yesterday as the weather was lovely but the midges stopped me as they were forming huge cloauds round my head, today is cooler and more windy so I finished painting the undercoat and serviced the whinch etc.

There is a big high pressure system over the UK but we seem to be on the outskirts of it but at least its dry anyway. I think the forecast was ok and getting better towards the weekend, it would be nice to get out on the boat this week. Feeling back to normal health wise here too which is good as I dont do sick very well.

Fishing and picking brambles

Well I had a good day today walked and swum the dogs, picked brambles then I went for a sail and caught some fish for dinner. Had a fish pie and will make a bramble and apple pie tomorrow. We used to gather a lot of brambles and mum would make pies and freeze some for after the bramble season.

The forecast looks ok this week so I might get out on the boat, it would be good to get out a bit before the boat has to come ashore for the winter. The midges are hellish this evening as the breeze has dropped off.