In the village of Olargues the Kiwi, who now has lived in Kilkenny so long he has gone semi feral, spotted this Deux Chevaux painted in the Kilkenny colours.
It was for sale.

Thanks for the picture should go to New Zealand.

I first heard The White Raven, an a cappella vocal trio, last year on Lyric fm singing All the fine young men and was immediately captivated.
I bought their second cd, The place where Life began at Christmas and as I recently discovered that their first cd, The water is wide had been reissued, bought that last week.

Both are beautiful, they sing mainly Irish folk songs but also some of Thomas Moore’s melodies and some more modern folk music.
Listen to a sample here

One of their songs on The water is wide seemed to have been written especially for this besotted Grandfather as it was called An Paistín Fionn which I translated as The Baby Fionn.

It is beautifully sung by the trio, and the first few times I played it I just accepted the lovely music and the poetic words and let them wash over me.

I suppose I did feel that the chorus was a little strange for a song to a baby ;

Is tusa mo rún, mo rún, mo rún
Is tusa mo rún is mo ghrá geal
Is tusa mo rún is mo chumann go buan
‘Sé mo chreach gan tú agam ó do mháithrín

For you are my sweetheart
My Sweetheart and my bright love,
My sweetheart and my friend forever
And I’m desolate that you are with your mother not me.

It wasn’t until Síle , whose Irish is far superior to mine, came home from school that we began to crack it.

Here is the first verse;

Grá mo chroí mo pháistín fionn
A croí is a haigne ag gáire liom
A cíocha geala mar bláth na n-úll
Is a píob mar eala lá Márta

This we translated as;

Love of my life my little blond child
Your heart and your face laughing up at me
Your bright breasts like apple blossom
And your neck like a swan’s in March

These were certainly not appropiate words to be singing to a small infant !

I realised that what we had here was a love song.
I had been totally misled by the paistín assuming that it meant child as it usually does.
Here the poet was using it in much the same way as modern usage of “babe” or “baby” for sweetheart.

My second reason for confusion was the word Fionn, which I took to be the name. However in the text, given with the cd, it was not written with a capital F therefore it meant blonde or fairhaired.
Next point of confusion was that this particular song is sung by the female soilist in the group, making me leap to the wrong conclusion.
The answer was there in the text all the time.
The word a croí was not aspirated as a chroí which it would have been if they were talking about a male.

So all in all I was just about as wrong as could be.
What I had taken as a lullaby sung by a mother to her infant called Fionn was actually quite a racy love song sung by man to the blonde girl he fancied.

But still, with just a little bit of tweaking I can take two lines out which seem to me totally appropiate for the beloved Grandson,

Grá mo chroí mo pháistín Fionn
A chroí is a haigne ag gáire liom

Love of my heart my little Fionn
Your heart and your face laughing up at me.

Anyone who has been reading about my progress on the French Adventure will know that Clive Nunn and I were joined by The Kiwi during April and May.
Now The Kiwi, as well as being an ace carpenter and (to my chagrin) ace scrabble player is also, it appears, a cool photographer.
I have just recieved his interpretation of The Kitchen-A Work in Progress

I like it.

Some of his shots I have included because they show how well the space works both in daylight and at night time, the last two shots are interesting, one taken through the top of a little wraught iron table which I got in the Brocante, the other a close up of the Sideboard.

Bravo Kiwi.

I normally don’t bother to read the spam which gets stuck in my filter, just zap it sight unseen, but something about this one appealed to me, is it the hopeful sentiments or the air of enthusiasm or the inventive use of English ?
I have absolutely no idea what it is about but I quite fancy a connect down get along with of the day with him/her.
I am far to cautious to connect down get along in case I am immediately struck down by some dread connect down virus.
Anyone brave enough out there who would like to practice sharing is happy with them ?

Dear friend:

Your sincerely.

The good daughter Caitriona has been taking some time off her maternal duties to update some sections of my site.

On my links you will notice a link to Every Monday, an internet magazine which is full of interesting articles especially for retirees like me.
They have commissioned me to do a series of Food Blogs called Food Matters which is now under way and you can check them out via the link at the side.
On the top bar you will see a drop down for the Chambre d’Hote into which I intend to give useful pieces of information about the French adventure and sort out bookings etc prior to the launch of “lepresbytere.net” which will be the site for that business.

Caitriona, Aonghus and Fionn were down over the weekend and I got to have a good go off the grandson.
I even babysat for the petit mome an honour I am suitably gratetful for.

It was in the early nineteen eighties and I was working in Ballinakill House in Waterford.
Perhaps it would be fair to point out that at this stage Ireland was at the very begining of what has been a revolution in how we saw food. Restaurants who were serious about food and neither connected to a hotel or Chinese were a novelty. “Catering ” as it was called was of the catering pack variety and came mainly from packets, freezers or tins.
Sue, who was the waitress at the time in Ballinakill and a good Protestant with an accent to match, came back from the table where she had taken an order, somewhat flustered.
It turned out she had been lost in translation.
She explained that the man at the table had asked her if the soup was “Tin Soup”.
She rose herself to her full height and explained that the soups, and indeed all else served in the restaurant, were carefully made by the French trained chef(me) with his own hands from scratch, using local farmed ingredients each known to him personally and not only did he never use a tinned product but he didn’t even have a tin opener in the kitchen,(true).
The orderer (a local man) also rose himself to his full height and expostulated that he “Only wanted to know if the soup was tick or tin!”

When we were digging in the garden a few years ago we found this Candelabrum, obviously discarded by a previous occupant of the house.

Somehow it has never found its way indoors, although I rather think it may now find itself heading towards France.

Last night we had our annual “Bite and Recite” when members of our book club arrive with food and a poem and it was decided that, with the exceptional weather, we could eat outdoors.
So for the only second time in the five years which we have lived in this house the outdoor candlebrum was pressed into use.
As I put it on the table I noticed that our resident spiders had decided to give it some festive decorations a la Miss Havisham.
I rather think they have improved it.

I am a bit of an Crossword addict, and occasionally (to Síle’s annoyance) the clues even make me laugh.
Here’s one that did from today’s English Independent;

Good Sex making you bad tempered (6)

I think I’ll just leave it like that and see if anyone else gets it (or even thinks it funny)
Solution tomorrow.

Date line Tomorrow.

The solution is indeed ( as Billy pointed out)

(G) rumpy

well….., It made me laugh.