Just checking in...

Weeks like this, I wish I was all set up with twitpic and mobile blogging and knew every function of Dial2Do inside and out. For it's been a colourful, surreal few days, and I shall have probably have to wait for the dust to settle before I can do justice to it in words and pictures.

But in brief: there's an article on the pirate play in today's Examiner; the craftey market is setting up down on the pier as I type, so I'm shortly off to learn about lobster pots and more. And there's a fabulous, soulful man in town called Brother Anthony Keane, Forester of Glenstal Abbey, who will be speaking on the restoration of the Ilen. Promises to be a treaty afternoon.

And then Piracy. And then life Post-Piracy. Happy sigh.

Money for Old Rope

Just back from standing in the rain outside the boatyard, furtively trying to salvage old rope from random debris. And - of course - at that moment, a car slowly reverses out of the boatyard, a window rolls down.

My Piracy/Life balance has officially tipped. Sigh.

However, we now have some good tying-uppey rope (although costumes, lines, fluidity of stage movement are all still, ahem... "in development").

Roll on Saturday. In particular, roll on Saturday post-play.

Walk of Shame

Bank Holiday Monday, it was all go in Baltimore! Most of the InstaSailingCrowd had disappeared, and the afternoon of blazing sunshine brought everyone out to catch up, enjoy a Bulmer's in the square, or do something a smidge more energetic.

From the cool of Bushes, I watched elegant currachs approaching across the bay. They were part of a sponsored row from Schull to Baltimore (and appropriately enough, a rower from the Irish Olympic team was also watching their approach, approvingly). Star of the show was one of our ferrymen, who abandoned mechanised transport and took up oars, and made excellent time.

The other event was the RNLI walk, to raise money for the local lifeboats. The route (which stretched out to Lough Oighin) was five miles, with an optional extra four miles. Or, if you cheated - yes, cheated, on a charity walk - it was probably a smidge under nine miles. Because it turns out that one of the walkers decided to off-road and cut through a field, thinking no-one would notice. But oh, phone calls were made. News reached Bushes in seconds, and within minutes the Route Map was duly altered to mark the shameful shortcut.

And if that wasn't enough, someone who er... happened to have her laptop with her, and too much time on her hands, did up some little road signs (yes, downloading the Irish Road Sign font and all). And this morning, a cohort laminated said signs, and put them up as a lesson to all Would Be Cheaters out there. Naughty naughty.



AND the other thing that happened yesterday was that I got to meet the fabulous lobster pot maker (who it turned out, I already knew). And he (wait for it) said that I could help make such a pot at the Heritage Festival this weekend!! All praise...

Bunny Blog

Okay, turns out that Good Friday has its own special traditions here. One restaurant in the village stays open, and serves wine (as long as you're eating). The standard order seemed to be:
- chips x 1
- bottle of wine x 2

And there's also the folk who head to Sherkin for some Good Friday fun, er... I mean, ritual observances. One local reappeared on Saturday morning, having missed the last ferry. Well, if he will insist on reciting just one more decade of the rosary...

And then I walked into the village yesterday and it was like someone had beamed down InstaSailingCrowd. Hundreds and hundreds of people, more than 100 perfect little white sails, looking like neat handkerchiefs gliding across the bay. I huddled at the local table at Bushes; tried to cope with the shock as I was told 'Jaysus this is nothing, Girl!'

The summer is suddenly looking a whole lot more productive for me :-) And while I missed getting a photo of the zillions of boats, later in the afternoon Glenans were practicing. And shouting. A lot.



Anyhoo, then this morning I headed out for a run on the hamster wheel, and was caught by something glittery among my geraniums.



The ever-mysterious Easter Bunny had been :-)

So, before the day gets taken over with rugby (Come on Munster!!!) and pints and skyping with family and friends, right now it's quiet: night lights lit; coffee made. And instead of the traditional Messiah (yeah yeah, first performed in Fishamble Street in Dublin) I've opted for Forever Changes by Love, without a doubt the trippiest dippiest album ever. It would make you want to go and hand out blossoms to strangers...

And it's perfect :-)

Have a gorgeous weekend.

News round up

Well, Tuesday disappeared in a flurry of catch-up sessions with friends. Rehearsal on Wednesday evening was postponed because there was a press launch for the Heritage Festival (brochure available here), and some of the piratey cast went along.

This year, one of the festival highlights is the restoration of the 'Ilen', a boat (locally-built, in the 1920s I think) which spent decades in the Falklands, and has come home to be spruced up. To mark the occasion, our VIP guests were... oh I can't remember their proper (peer/job) titles - basically they owned the Falklands in the 1960s. Anyhoo, they were delightful. The evening got everyone geared up for next weekend (walking, sailing, pirating and craftey things - including those gorgeous lobster pots I fell in love with on Sherkin Island; there's a treat coming up for me).

Yesterday's pub quiz was great craic, and had joint winners, one of whom was The Fastnet Falcons. Go us!!!

And today, being Good Friday, the village seems pretty chilled. Gruelling day so far: lazy breakfast, sauna, coffee... and now there's a whole roasting-of-food système happening in the kitchen, which I have nothing to do with. Love that!

Guess I'll just kick back, watch Murder, She Wrote, maybe do a crosaire...

Have a fabulous Easter, all :-)

Under the radar

I'm alive!! Sorry for the absence - it's been a crazy busy week: piracy, heritage festival thingeys, local IT emergencies...

Have rehearsal in a couple of minutes and then Fiddle Fair pub quiz; will be back on the air 'properly' tomorrow, with photos and fireworks and everything. Promise.

Retracings

This sunshiney afternoon, I dropped by the place I lived when I first came to West Cork. It was probably this time last year when I moved in (during TBBI: the time before blogging in Ireland).

I drove up the back roads to the secluded house overlooking the sea. The sound of the waves carries up the valley; you can hear it inside the house, over any typing sounds. Today the herd of cows were still gathered close to the house (last year they used to watch Orlaith TV, they'd just follow me from room to room, see what I was up to). And the birds were gathering all their nesty materials, and the bluebells and wild garlic and bright yellow gorse were all in bloom; it won't be too long before the spires of cerise foxglove start appearing.

So, I stood listening to the waves. I used to make my way down through the fields to the strand - a little stretch of sheltered beach. Sometimes as I passed by, the cows would all start mooing loudly, like a bovine security alarm. I remembered the day it was discovered that the little wire field-fences were sometimes electrified (sorry Shona!).

Back then, the neighbour-farmers knew me, and they were fine with me going through the fields; this year I should probably drive the long way around to the beach. So, I picked up the gardeney things that I'd left there (for tis the season of planting up) and retraced my steps, away from the lovely, inspirational place.

Wanted: A Captive Audience

Okay folks, the piratey poster is ready to be launched...


No turning back now. Gulp.

Have a great weekend :-)

The Observers

Scriptorium Museum days: occasionally instead of bringing manuscripts up to my office, I'd camp out in the gallery itself. And sometimes, I'd be working away while a tour came in. They'd peruse the collection while the guide talked about manuscripts, the birth of print, history of the biblical text, yadda yadda.

But then the tour would take a turn, as the guide gestured over to me, enthusing: "Sometimes we have visiting scholars who come to study the collection, but here is our own Orlaith. You can see, she's currently working on a manuscript". And everyone would come close to observe me: she's reading, she's turning a page, she's reading some more...

And that's the feeling I have now, because there's a couple standing outside the house, looking in, watching me type...

Anyhoo, in saner news: enjoyed a fab lunch with friends who are staying out on the Sheep's Head this week. And it's a glorious sunshiney day, which looks something like this:

Trust no one

Ah, April Fool's Day.

In a regular year, I try to keep my head down and just get through the day. I am the most gullible person on the planet; no matter how many years pass, it still never occurs to me that while a friend is chatting away, their real purpose may be to dupe me into believing a lie.

This year may be worse than usual - pranks here seem to be well-developed & fiendishly devious. Sigh.

But here's a charming one from Fora.tv: Fwitter - "now you have time to get smart". And it's closer to the truth than you'd think; there's already one site offering wisdom in 90 second doses. But not Fora - they make us raise our game, schedule time to listen, to learn. At least, every other day in the year, they do...