Behind the Fridge

With December looming, it's time to break out the Xmas Peter Cook & Dudley Moore: Matthew interviews A. Shepherd for the Bethlehem Star.



"Basically what happened Matthew, was that me and the lads were abiding in the fields..."

Sheer genius :-)

sneak peek

Rehearsals for Moliere's The Miser are coming along :-)



Lines are coming along slowly (on my part). I started off well, learning them while I ran in the gym, but then Murder, She Wrote happened to be on one day, and it's all been downhill since then. Sat with script over a coffee in Field's the other day and several Baltimore Folk paused to say hi - I looked like a total swot. Snicker snicker...

Table quiz fun continues this evening in Casey's.

Have a lovely weekend.

TED: Ideas worth spreading

There's been lots of e-talk this week about TED talks. Every few months I explore their site, and watch different short talks about a specific theme, or else cobble together an eclectic mix of speakers.

For me this week, it was about learning and creativity - Ken Robinson, Elizabeth Gilbert, Amy Tan (and I've just clicked on the tag 'inspiring' and can see a whole other afternoon of thoughtful listening right there!). Anyhoo, well worth a look.

And in other news, West Cork remains somewhere between soggy and flooded. Hailstones today made for a bracing, refreshing change. Kitties are loving this thing called Roaring Fire, and somehow have avoided the singed whisker look. Thus far.

Oh please oh please oh please...

...let the staff involved with making these lights have more perspicacity than their design team...

RS Thomas

I was meandering online through some poems by RS Thomas - looking for one about a daffodil (at least, the poem reminds me of a daffodil).

And though I didn't find the daffodilly poem, I did find this:

A Blackbird Singing
by R. S. Thomas

It seems wrong that out of this bird,
Black, bold, a suggestion of dark
Places about it, there yet should come
Such rich music, as though the notes'
Ore were changed to a rare metal
At one touch of that bright bill.

You have heard it often, alone at your desk
In a green April, your mind drawn
Away from its work by sweet disturbance
Of the mild evening outside your room.

A slow singer, but loading each phrase
With history's overtones, love, joy
And grief learned by his dark tribe
In other orchards and passed on
Instinctively as they are now,
But fresh always with new tears.

While there's air...

Yesterday the e-world was halted in its orbit - broadband, mobile, even RTE2, bless its little cotton socks. I'm blogging now before the connection goes again (it's been on and off all day), so without further ado:



I took advantage of the dark and stormy night to catch up on podcasts: some stories that I'd downloaded for Halloween - MR James, Stoker, Lovecraft (it'll be all F. Scott Fitz & martinis for Christmastime :-) ).

Meanwhile, today focus remains on the inclement weather. And while this isn't an exact representation of the road into our little edge-of-the-world village of Baltimore, it's not too far off:



Maybe if I photoshopped in another element: a tumble dryer teetering on the rock, its door flapping in the howling gales, with two little kitties holed up inside...

All was quiet; I wondered why...

Think regular kitties are scrumptious?

Try them fresh from the dryer for warmer, softer, altogether fluffier snuggles :-)

Crowd pleasers

Squally squally day... stretches of blue sky with swathes of black clouds and rainbows galore.

Speaking of blue skies, you know those people who magically infiltrate crowded areas and dance to something like The Sound of Music, and bring smiles to everyone's faces? Well, this weekend, that happened in Cork - it's a little muddled, and takes a while to warm up, but still lovely. Here's the footage:



In Kitty Land, tuna is the new ham. Bowls polished, turned upside down, staring at the fridge, crying for me to take out the rest of the scrumptious fissheyness.

Me, I'm onto Pot o'coffee #2 and settling down to writing. I hereby ignore their mewling pleas :-)

Table Tops

While the pot of coffee gurgles to completion in the background...

Tonight marks the opening of Winter Table Quiz season. It's beginning with a series of quizzes organised by the Baltimore Drama group, but there'll be other organisations, other causes, other quizzes through the winter and spring.

In teeny villages, in the dark midwinter, it is the great Table Quiz that helps keep us off suicide watch :-)

[invisible pause while I go and get coffee...]

Oh my goodness - must share the news! So, a certain someone emailed through a coffee tip, with the note 'I think you're the only person who might find this interesting' (fair point). I harbour strong feelings about milk in coffee: the amount; the warmth thereof. Anyhoo, this was a short cut to warm frothy milk.

And it works! It's not two-inch high fancy barista froth, but smooth cafe-au-lait-in-Paris kind of foam. Afternoon coffee break just got better!

What chaise longues were made for

Gorgeous bright day; driving back from Skib, the sunlight through the trees was honeyed gold...

And then, coming up to a blind corner, a car seemed to be reversing from a by-road back onto the main road. As I slowed, I saw it was only backing up a little so that it could make a very sharp turn.

Into a field.

And then I noticed that the brown sign directing people to the ever-picturesque Lough Hyne had been twisted, that instead of pointing along the by-road...

Sigh. Nothing waited inside the field but neat bales of hay and an acre of tar-pit strength waterlogged mud.

And in other news, for the lovely EmergingWriter, here are the kittens on a break during an epic bout of Stealth Ninja Wars. Don't let the innocent expressions fool you:



And here's how they while away a rainy afternoon:



There's much to be gleaned from their approach to life :-)

Rainy day games

I'm scribbling away, happily ensconced in Art Deco New York.

Meanwhile, the kitties have been keeping busy with Stealth Wars and a napping extravaganza. They're now playing a more amicable Hide & Seek.

Max is winning.

Ghouls begone

Ah, halloween decorations come down, and find a new use :-)

Last week in pictures

Just before I resume this evening's scribbling, here's a few catch-up photos from last week...

The big cake, a heart attack enfolded in choux:



The boys, back in the day when everyone had an appendix:



And, in a neighbourhood renowned for passers-by staring in, one house decides to turn the tables:

All Hallows

I meant to post some photos, but the camera is in another room, and two kittens are asleep on my lap...
...and then I realised I had taken a few pics with my phone on Halloween, and both the phone and its little connector cable were within stretching distance :-)

So, on Halloween in Baltimore, friends came over, and we made decorations (to hang) and dumplings (to eat), and a fine pumpkin was carved. Then we processed not-so-solemnly to the Community Hall, stopping in at the Leisure Centre (of course) to show off the Costumed Ones to the swimming pool staff.

Did I mention two of our party were carrying a coffin? Well, they were. Hence the coulda-been-more-solemn procession.

The dim-lit Community Hall was a veritable paean to the arty folk that live in the area - with gorgeous spooky hangings and death masks, and the Shelob-esque spider mascot overseeing it all. It was filled with little witches and spidermen guessing how many eyeballs in the jar and performing forensic examinations of their seasonal loot.

And then there's the pumpkin carving competition, which is taken purdy seriously:



Lovely to wander around, sip some mulled wine, dance with the kidlets (felt like a giant on the dancefloor). And then as the stormy weather rolled in, it was time for home and scary movies and candles and kitties (my ideal Halloween kitty Dubh showed no interest in the proceedings - it's not like any ham featured. Little sigh.)