Holy Shmoly! » Life

Well Loved Lego

Donncha O Caoimh — Mon, 16 Jan 2012 12:44:00 +0000

Well used and loved Lego may break and get squashed but the non-broken bits can be washed and dried and used again by a new generation.

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30 minutes of exercise a day? Can I?

Donncha O Caoimh — Wed, 11 Jan 2012 09:52:51 +0000

I should walk my son to school more often. It’s only 1.2km away, 12 minutes to get back home and I feel refreshed after that walk. It’s been such a mild winter I have no excuse!

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The Robin Cam

Donncha O Caoimh — Fri, 30 Apr 2010 08:37:37 +0000

Derek Mooney of “Mooney Goes Wild” on Radio 1 has a robin cam pointing at a nest in his utility room. It’s the usual webcam quality but it’s good enough that we were able to see the mother robin arrive and feed her chicks.

See the Mooneycam for links to this camera and a blue tit camera in Áras an Uachtaráin (where the Irish President lives). They also have a diary of sorts where Derek keeps a record of what’s happening.

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Some people don't feel the cold

Donncha O Caoimh — Fri, 08 Jan 2010 10:54:03 +0000

The weather reading on my desktop computer says -3C, that’s the temperature at the local airport I presume. It’s very cold out, but the sun is out and at least there’s no wind.

I took Oscar for a walk, I’m all wrapped up against the cold with a thick warm hat and over that a hoodie (yes, they do have a use!) and finally a light jacket to keep all the heat in. I dodged the ice and enjoyed the lovely sunlight melting away the frost on exposed surfaces. The footpath wasn’t too bad, Oscar was enjoying himself.

Half way down the road I bump into a neighbour. He’s dressed for a totally different season! Apart from his usual black jeans, he had on a nice shirt, but the top two buttons were undone exposing flesh to the cruel winter cold, and his one concession to that cold was a light black jacket, not closed of course. He hurried past, commenting that, “the sun is very bright this morning isn’t it?”

Amazing.

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When a dog loves a woman

Donncha O Caoimh — Sun, 17 Aug 2008 19:56:41 +0000

The happy and sad story of Goofy, a dog rescued from Greece, who took over Belinda Harley’s life.

If you enjoyed story of Goofy’s rescue, look for the book, “Marley and Me”. It’s a lovely story, and you’d need to have a hard heart not to shed a tear by the end of it.

The only time that Mark Birley, that quintessentially reserved Englishman and ruler of the nightclub Annabel’s, sent me a love letter, it began: “Darling Belinda, I know I only saw you last night, and will see you again in a few days, but there is something I wanted to put in writing. I want to tell you how much I love and admire you” (here, I caught my breath) “for rescuing that divine dog.”

The rest of the letter was not about me at all. It was all about Goofy, the mixture of spaniel and scamp with the wonderful, intelligent eyes that I had brought home, after nightmarish battles with official-dom, from the Greek island of Paxos.

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Burning rubbish poisons us

Donncha O Caoimh — Sat, 14 Jun 2008 21:40:59 +0000

What would you do if your neighbour was burning rubbish in their fireplace and the smoke and ash from it was being blown into your house? That’s what I want to know in today’s post on inphotos.org

I really want to know what you would do. If it’s happened to you, did it have a happy ending?

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Life Before Death

Donncha O Caoimh — Wed, 09 Apr 2008 21:11:41 +0000

Life Before Death

A series of powerful images, taken before and after the death of each subject. The images are striking, but what I found most moving and upseting were the stories that accompanied them. Some had accepted their fate while others rallied against it.

“Death is nothing,” says Maria. “I embrace death. It is not eternal. Afterwards, when we meet God, we become beautiful.” Maria Hai-Anh Tuyet Cao, 52

“Get me out of here”, she whispered as soon as anyone held her hand. “My heart will stop beating if I stay here. This is an emergency! I don’t want to die!” Elly Genthe, 83

(via Photub.com)

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Rescued from a terrible fall

Donncha O Caoimh — Tue, 13 Nov 2007 14:38:45 +0000

If you live in Australia you may remember a news story about a young man who slipped and fell from a waterfall at Mount Glorious, west of Brisbane several weeks ago. The injured man was very badly hurt but his friend stayed with him and cared for him until help arrived. From the news report:

Inspector Hunter Nicol says he was lying face down in the water and a hiking companion jumped in and dragged him out.

“He has got severe head injuries, some leg injuries from what we can gather initially,” he said.

“He’d fallen approximately 10 metres, landing face first into water and it was only for his friend – he was able to get him out and look after him until help was able to arrive.”

Why am I blogging about a hiking incident that happened on the other side of the planet? Because Bartek, the friend who saved the injured man’s life, is my sister-in-law Suzanne’s boyfriend. Here is his story. He sent me photos but they didn’t attach properly unfortunately. Suzanne sent on the images you see here later.

My friend’s name is Andrew Davison but I call him Davo at times from our school days. Suzanne tells me you would like a more comprehensive account of what happened 2 Sundays ago, so here goes.

I hadn’t seen Andrew since we climbed some of the Glass House Mountains, Queensland about 5 months ago. On this trip, he was eager to show me the Mount Glorious creek bed from Greens Falls to Love Falls (pictured). There was enough water at Love Falls for a little cool down dunk in the water before we headed up Love Creek and we got up to a pretty huge waterfall which we climbed to the top to have a better look before heading back.
It was about 1:30pm and we were about an hour’s walk from the car when we where retuning through a fairly difficult portion of the creek. We had to go around a dried up water fall as it would be unsafe to try going straight up. Andrew was about 10m from the bottom of the creek bed and had reached a bit he was struggling with. I told him to grab hold of the bag strap I lowered down and to give the rock in front of him a big tug to see if it held, and then use that rock for leverage. This he did but without holding onto the bag to check the rock properly. Our worst fears were confirmed when a 6-8kg rock came straight out of the side of the ravine and Andrew fell from his hazardous perch. The rock followed him down and I believe smashed his right eye during the fall. He landed back first into about 20cm of water, knocked him unconscious, and started to sink into the water as the pool turned crimson. I flew down the side of the ravine with little thought to my safety and made it to him in about 35 seconds, apologies to the vegetation on the way!

I slid straight into the waist deep water near Andrew and put both my arms underneath his, with my left hand on his forehead to stabilize his neck, my right arm around his chest I heaved… Damn he was heavy! My underwater foothold slipped and we fell back into the water and again I heaved him up the side of the rock. As he lay there he coughed up all the water he had swallowed and started coughing and moaning. Once I got him in a stable position I checked him out. There were major lacerations to his head, possible skull fractures, a hole in his right cheek about an inch long, his right eye was mush with multiple fractures bulging out, two major lacerations on his right knee and one on his left knee. So much blood.

Having only my shirt available, I strapped his right knee to stop that bleeding and put a thick woolly sock on the head wound so he couldn’t feel all that blood flowing over him and cause him to panic even more. I pulled my mobile phone out of the bag while cradling Andrew so he would stay still and be more comfortable and called the emergency services. it took them about 5 minutes to put me in contact with emergency personnel who told me to do what I had already done; check his pulse, his breathing, see if his eyes were reacting to light and movement, ask him questions, keep him conscious and not to give him any water. He was in a really bad shape.

We had a very long wait of two hours keeping leeches, flies, mosquitoes, ticks and ants off us, keeping Andrew moaning and concious and trying to keep him warm with my blood covered body while answering phone calls to stupid ass people that couldn’t follow my directions.
“Just ask the F***ING locals!” I felt like screaming down the phone but said so politely. Finally two locals did find us and a girl of about 16 came climbing down to us like a natural. She talked to Andrew while her brother screamed to the 2 paramedics, the fireman and the police officer who had fallen well behind, “Hurry the f*** up you slow bastards. He’s down HERE!”

Thank God help was here. I told the girl to use her white shirt to wave at the helicopter at the clearing and her brother to take off his shirt so we could keep Andrew warm as he was already shivering uncontrollably. Within 20 minutes the chopper dropped off 2 more paramedics who helped to stabilize Andrew. Then it came back after another 20 minutes to drop off the stretcher and returned after 45 minutes once we had Andrew in it and had carried him down to the clearing about 20 meters away and about 15 meters below where he fell.

Anyway, Andrew was sent home today from hospital. He will have to return for at least 2 more operations to remove bone fragments from behind his eye again and for his right knee. Apart from that he is healing quickly and looks like he will be back to normal in the near future.

Thanks Bartek for sharing the story of the rescue. I think you were a hero that day and Andrew is lucky you kept your head and knew what to do. Hopefully you’ll never have to use those skills again!

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Census 1901 – a look into the past

Donncha O Caoimh — Thu, 11 Oct 2007 09:16:08 +0000

Do a search for Census 1901 Ireland and you’ll find lots of sites offering lists and information from the census that year. However for a personal insight into the Census, Grannymar has an interesting post. It was a completely different world. “The good old days” indeed!

Column 4 – Education.

State here whether he or she can “Read and Write,” can “Read” only, or “Cannot Read.”

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I want to break free

Donncha O Caoimh — Sat, 12 May 2007 21:44:32 +0000

Gerry, you’re at peace now.

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