Holy Shmoly! » blarney

Blairs Inn Smile

Donncha O Caoimh — Sun, 13 Jun 2010 14:19:19 +0000

Duncan of Blairs Inn was giving out free samples of their delicious beef stew along with samples from other local restaurants at the festival in Blarney today.

Delicious stuff, and Blairs Inn is a great place to go for a meal too. Only been there once but we had a great meal there. Recommended.

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Patrick's Day in Blarney

Donncha O Caoimh — Wed, 17 Mar 2010 14:35:31 +0000

We were originally going to be walking in the St. Patrick’s Day Parade in Blarney but our son fell asleep a few minutes ago, and it wouldn’t be fair on him to drag him out unfortunately. We did visit the “farmers market” this morning however and I took a few photos. They’re really only snapshots but I hope you enjoy them, especially if you have visited Blarney.

This is probably the few times in the year that you’ll see this many locals near Blarney Castle!

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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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My Christmas Day Adventure

Donncha O Caoimh — Sat, 26 Dec 2009 00:02:14 +0000

Today was a Christmas Day my family won’t forget for a long time! We had a great time today, heard some amazing news, and then had a bit of an adventure on the way home. The weather has been pretty cold for the last while, the county was covered in a sheet of ice but this afternoon temperatures rose slightly which was great because we were due to visit family for Christmas dinner.

My brother Donal and his wife had ice problems this morning when their car slid out of his estate. Two hours later they got underway when the roads thawed out a bit. That had worried me because there’s a hill into our estate too.

After a great day with family, a delicious dinner made by my brother-in-law Chris and a visit to my own family we returned home, sharing the road with nervous drivers and reckless drivers. The journey home was uneventful but the hill into our estate proved to be troublesome. The road was covered in ice and slush and as we rounded the bend a car slid down backwards and eventually braked and turned back down. I tried to drive us up there too but the car only got so far before wheels started to spin, the car shuddered and we weren’t going forward any more. Kinda scary!

I had to turn back of course, we parked further up the road where I spotted a break in the ditch. In the freezing dark I managed to get up there, and to make what is turning into a long story shorter enlisted the help of our neighbours who were in the same boat. Between us we managed to get the essential bags out of the car, I carried Adam up the road, and we took a short cut through Rosy and Con’s house knocking a good 100m off our journey.

I used the light of my Nokia 5800 in video mode to light the way so I have a record of all that happened, even if it’s more audio than anything else! Must have a listen tomorrow.

Anyway, I’m glad to be home, safe and sound. We’ll get the car tomorrow. Thanks neighbours for your help. Nollaig Shona dhaoibh go leir!

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Sorry I missed you Cllr. Dan Fleming

Donncha O Caoimh — Thu, 04 Jun 2009 22:10:12 +0000

This message from Cllr. Dan Fleming was stuffed into gates all over my estate this evening. I know they only have so much time on their hands but the letter was rolled up tightly and squashed between the bars on our gate and in the gates of other houses. I’d venture to say that it took as long to roll and fold the letter up as it would to walk to our front door. Oh, and yes, we were in when they “called”. The only other people to stuff literature into our gate are those clothes collectors and they’re possibly more popular than Fianna Fail at this stage.

I’m sure he’s a great guy and he’d have a great chat with you and all that but there’s no sign that he’s a Fianna Fail man. The missing party name strikes again! His website is down but his Fianna Fail page is up however.

I’m still not sure who I’ll vote for but you can hurt Fianna Fail without helping Sinn Fein if you vote carefully.

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Tiny Little Kitten

Donncha O Caoimh — Mon, 01 Jun 2009 10:07:24 +0000

A tiny little kitten wandered into the dog’s kennel this morning and started to meow her heart out. She’s so small I can fit her in one hand. She tried to befriend and approach a local tomcat but he didn’t want anything to do with her. Thankfully Adam kept his distance from the new “baby” and I was able to feed her heavily diluted milk in a syringe.

Not sure what’s going to happen next.

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The Simpsons come to Ireland

Donncha O Caoimh — Mon, 16 Mar 2009 23:05:32 +0000

So, a new Irish themed Simpsons will air tomorrow night to celebrate St Patrick’s Day and the whole world is going gaga over it.

We had lunch in Blarney today and heard from more than one person that the Simpsons will be making an appearance tomorrow at Blarney Castle! I think people are confusing reality with a cartoon storyline. Things are getting out of hand. Next thing you know, Bugs Bunny and Daffy Ducks will be spotted walking out of the Woollen Mills and drinking pints with the locals.

I have the episode set to record on Sky+ anyway. Should be a laugh.

Oh, and it’s not “Patty’s Day”. A pat is something a cow leaves behind in a field and contributes to global warming and is quite smelly. Dung beetles like it too. If you must shorten “St. Patrick’s Day”, it’s “Paddy’s Day”! Thanks Gavin for alerting me to this atrocious misspelling.

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I called the litter warden

Donncha O Caoimh — Thu, 29 Jan 2009 16:00:43 +0000

This morning I discovered a black refuse sack of rubbish had been dumped almost in front of my house. This afternoon it’s still there but I rang the litter warden for South Cork, Jim Dooley at 021-4285417 giving my name, address and phone number. Hopefully they’ll get out here soon and find incriminating details buried in the bag but I don’t hold out much hope of that.

From a brief inspection of it, whoever dropped it doesn’t have the healthiest diet in the world. Packets of crisps, cans of Diet 7UP, plastic wrapping, and of course some of the local dogs have got their jaws into it too. Oh yeah, dogs are supposed to be under the owner’s control? ‘Course they are. The dog warden would have a field day around here too.

Anyway, I’m really pissed off at whoever dumped the rubbish. It’s disgusting, ignorant and completely irresponsible. I’ll update this post if the litter warden shows up. Seething.

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2 candles and an apple pie

Donncha O Caoimh — Mon, 01 Dec 2008 20:30:56 +0000

So, I enter my 33rd year on this planet. Highlight of the day was our lunch in the Castle Hotel in Blarney where Adam was on his best behaviour and I was surprised with an apple pie and a rendition of “Happy Birthday” sung by my wife and 2 of the staff!

The burger I had for lunch was delicious too. Yum.

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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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