Lions lose by a point

Well my Lions got beaten by a point and it has let the Aussies back in. Ohh well it should be a good game in Sydney.

I,m going into galway to pick up Alan at half seven and he is here until next Sunday, sheana and Sasha popped down for a flying visit this last week so I had them out sailing twice, sacha caught half a dozen pollack one day and we failed to make sheana seasick.

The weather doesn't look that great, it would have been great to go out and see the Galway hookers racing but its not as much fun if its raining. Monday looks ok as does the end of the week right enough if it looks ok on Monday Alan and I might sail to the Aran islands and stay overnight.

both my teams get up, just

Nail biting finishes to the two games I was interested in today, the Lions just held out against the Aussies, thanks to the Australian kickers missing everything they were gifted and Scotland scored a try and kicked their conversion after the hooter had blown to just beat Italy, its always the fact that the game was won that goes down in the records but phew they were close. Next weekend the Lions play in Melbourne and they will have to pick the game up another notch.

Its damp and windy here today so I am having a soil free day and what's left of the 10 ton pile can wait till it dries up a bit or I shall be creating a quagmire.  No other news here.

midgie landing pad

If you look closely at the flower below you can see it is covered in the wee darlings (midgies) If I seem to be losing weight its probably blood loss to them.

I have a friend in Canada who keeps changing her face book pic, to flower photos of mine so here are a few more to choose from Lynne.

Demonstrations in Brazil over the price of bus fares and soccer game tickets attract a million people while in Dublin there is a demonstration against wind farms close to homes today, which, if the one I was at in Galway is anything to go by, will attract 30 people and two stray dogs. Its crazy how unconcerned the Irish are and I should be over there making up the numbers to 31, but couldn't today.

Singapore has severe smog today helped by fires in neighboring Sumatra, Indonesia, a pollution index reading hit 401 at midday today, beating previous records of 371 and 321 on the previous two days. A reading between 101 and 200 is considered unhealthy. Anything over 300 is “hazardous”. Beijing seems to have constant hazardous readings.

Southern Belle and my brother in law George are at Roslynn Bay near Yepoon and the Capricorn National Park now, he has been making his way up the East coast of Australia before they head out in a convoy of yachts to the Loiusinades Islands in the Coral Sea. I keep a check on his location on skipr.net and give him a call occasionally. They are away cruising for 6 months. No hazardous smog either here in Connemara or in the Coral Sea.

Alan arrives a week tomorrow so I shall have to make up a list of electrical things needing done as he is a sparky by trade and handy. My pile of ten tons of soil is diminishing I did twenty barrow loads again this morning with the assistance of Ben trying to bite the front wheel of the barrow 100,000,000 midgies hitching a ride on my head and Gus / Jessy barking encouragement. The Joys of Gardening.  I should have a blog and whinge about it ehh, ohh I do!!!!

Water lillies and a mass of spuds

The pond is literally covered in white and pink lillies which have to be my favorite bloom, and everything else is growing at a hundred miles an hour.

 The last two pictures are my vegies, spuds in the bottom one and peas, onions Brussels sprouts and lettuces in the wooden planters. Already harvested some veg and the potatoes haven't got long before  I shall be sifting through with my fingers looking for dinner, there is a term for that but I cant remember it and google is hopeless unless you are looking for pictures of Galway hookers when it comes up with ladies of the night outside some bar in Salthill.

I got 10 tons of topsoil of my pal Keith in return for some SEO and another 10 ton to come when I recover from spreading this lot. I'm trying to flatten out a bit of ground in front of the house so I can get the lawnmower over it. At the moment its all granite rock and tusocky grass / weeds.

Trying to talk my sister in law into coming over for a few days and Alan is coming next weekend with John for a few days so it should be good craic.

The harbour was busy today I guess their quotas must be full as the sea state is low and they could quite easily be out filling their holds with the silver darlings or sand eels as the case me be. Its really surprising the lack of a pub or shop close to the wharf. Considering how many people visit the Aran islands and the fact that the ferry leaves from here too you would think somewhere selling Guinness and seafood would make a squillion.

Angie finished a jigsaw of Turners  Fighting Temeraire which turned out nice, The Fighting Temeraire tugged to her last berth to be broken up is an oil painting executed in 1839 by the English artist J. M. W. Turner. It depicts one of the last second-rate ships of the linewhich played a distinguished role in the Battle of Trafalgar in 1805, the 98-gun ship HMS Temeraire, being towed by a paddle-wheel steam tug towards its final berth in Rotherhithe south east London in 1838 to be broken up for scrap. The painting hangs in the National Gallery, London, having been bequeathed to the nation by the artist in 1851. In 2005 it was voted the nation's favourite painting in a poll organized by BBC Radio 4's Today program.

The jigsaw is wooden and has wee animals and objects hidden in the jigsaw like a teapot and a dodo in this one, they are really nice jigsaws and this one will probably be framed and join some of the others she has done on the wall. The are made by a company called Wentworth they are expensive but if you have them on the wall as a piece of Art they are worth it.

I moved my blog on Search Engine Optimization for websites to Blogger too its at http://galwaysitedesign.blogspot.ie/  and since a lot of the garden photos were lost I put them on Picassa so you can view them again by clicking on that link.

Wordpress security breach

My websites pages were all deleted by a hacker yesterday who managed to break in through the derrykyle blog in Word Press, anyway it cost me £25 to have the files reinstalled on the server and my passwords changed so I have decided to come back to Google and good old blogger.com.

When I was out at the Aran Islands the other day I said I had a pod of porpoises follow me for an hour they were actually dolphins so well done Dad for spotting that. I thought they were small for dolphins according to Wikipedia The common bottlenose dolphin is grey in color and may be between 2 and 4 m (6.6 and 13 ft) long, and weigh between 150 and 650 kg (330 and 1,400 lb).Males are generally larger and heavier than females. In most parts of the world the adult's length is between 2.5 and 3.5 m (8.2 and 11 ft) with weight ranges between 200 and 500 kg (440 and 1,100 lb). Common bottlenose dolphins live in groups called pods that typically number about 15 individuals, but group size varies from pairs of dolphins to over 100 or even occasionally over 1000 animals for short periods of time.

 

I'm starting to put money aside for a trip to Australia if George is going cruising South sometime, not so easy when I'm not earning anything but I keep searching under the cushions on the couch and am doing ok, at this rate I should be able to go in 2043. Today is wet and windy not at all conducive to gardening so I shall put a fire on and do wee bits around the house today and think of what other passwords I have to change. I see they are testing a new airbus today the A350XWB (extra wide body) it doesn't sound as good as the 787 Dreamliner, more like an overweight friend than a comfy place to sleep.

 

Submissions have to be in to Galway County Council regarding their updating of the County Development Plan which of course is very pro wind farming being formulated in 2006. So I shall put pen to paper here today.