On Saturday, getting a sudden chocolate urge, I decided to make some of Caitriona’s excellent Chocolate Biscuits. I say excellent but this time they turned out a bit disasterous on me. They sorta spread beyond their confines and became one large and very crumbly sheet of chocolate intensity. They were fairly impossible to eat but then the little light went on in the old chef’s head.
I decided to make a batch of my superfine vanilla icecream and then roughly crushed my disasters and folded them in to the churned Ice Cream.
WOW!
A terrible delicious beauty is born (Síle and I battled over licking the paddle of the churn)
I now need to find out how I went wrong with the biscuit recipe and repeat the mistake.

We bought a few years ago in Ikea the -uninspiring but practical- reading lamp pictured here in Ikea’s pub shot. Unfortunately the shade got broken and we discovered that Ikea didn’t do replacements. That would have been it for me and I would have happily binned it- but not my wife Síle- who is a paid up member of the Society for Makers and Menders. She decided to keep a watchful eye out in Vide Greniers for a substitute. Yesterday she found the shade in the second picture and bought it for a shocking Euro. A good eye produced a silk purse I think!

Today, in the Super U, Síle spotted a lawn sprinkler, a fairly simple device which you stick in the ground and it then rotates and sprays at the same time thereby watering our little patch of grass which, after one of the mildest and driest winters for years, badly needed some attention.
Later I was roused out of my book on the terrace by a protest that “The hose doesn’t seem to be working “. So I descended to see what I could do.
It seemed obvious that she hadn’t stuck in the hose far enough into the device so I did just that.I lifted it out of the turf and jammed the hose further into the sprinkler.
Then it started to work.
It started to spray water in an even and circular spray.
She hadn’t turned it off before I fixed it.
I had a certain dilemma. As fast as I rotated the device in my hands the inevetible circular spray rotated faster and drowned me.I tried and failed to extract the hose from its now very snug orifice- this was byond me. So I stood there madly rotating the sprinkler device in my hand and failing miserably in my attempts to avoid getting thoroughly soused every time it rotated. I called for assistance from my wife who was still standing nearby but I regret to have to tell you that my disloyal spouse was laughing so hard that she wasn’t able to turn off the tap.
I can already feel your shock at her callousness.
Eventually she did , weak and weeping, manage to turn off the tap.
I may speak to her again some day.

Apartments within the Medieval walls of the Templar town of St. Eulalie de Cernon in the Aveyron

Because this is a significant number and it seems to be ( for the blog) a significant time, I am going to rehash my favourite LIT moment.

I was working in a hotel in Barlycove in West Cork (there is only one) in about 1967 and I was the waiter in the dining room in charge of taking the orders.

As I approached one couple one night I found them in helpless giggles.
We had, that day, got a new girl in reception- where they typed up the daily menu- and she had made two unfortunate errors.

The vegetable selection should have included Buttered Peas and the desserts Lemon Meringue Pies.

Unfortunately our rookie typist had offered on the menu ” Buggered Peas” as the veg and “Lemon Meringue Piss” as the dessert.

It took me quite some time to get them serious enough to order.

Just cleaning out my comments after a spam attack when I noticed that my last blog was number 2001, therefore the one before ” Two and a half grand for the Barber” was number 2000.
Then checking back I discover that my very first was on February 26th in 2005 just over 9 years ago.
A double whammy then and cause for celebration!

This is our lovely village from the Pech (Hill) to the south. Le Presbytere is in the centre by the church, above us to the right is the Pech with the cemetery and the Cypress trees, down in the valley in the foreground is Lamarre two large old buildings, originally a wine estate but now being turned into an equestrian centre. The mountains behind mark the begining of the Massive Central. This was the spot from which Mary Kennedy introduced the piece on Nationwide.

My Good and Gentle Wife Síle cut my hair and beard again this morning. (on the terrace in sunshine- me in my dressing gown)

As she chopped away (the hair gets lesser as the beard gets thicker) I contemplated that this scene had been played a few times already.

Given that we are married 40 years and 7 months and that the average time between shearings was about a month this looks like 487 times the poor woman has, like Delilah, tried to tame the locks of her beloved.

Now if we cynically reduce this to money, and we assume a round average figure over the years for what we in Cork used to call a Bazzer of €5 it appears that Madame is due €2435.00 in unpaid hairdressing fees. Well well well.

This was the incredible view from the terrace last night- a wonderful line of pink and gold silhouetted Pyrenees stretching west to infinity. This fellow was a long was off but my camera captured him. I think he could be Aneto at 3404 mtrs the highest of the chain. If so he is about 300 klms away, a breathtaking thought, like being able to see Belfast from Waterford.

I am the youngest of seven siblings which gives me three brothers and three sisters.
Sile is in the middle of six, she has three brothers and two sisters.
They have provided us with thirteen brother and sisters-in law.
We have three daughters.
In the fullness of time our brothers and sisters have multiplied giving us a combination of thirty five nephews and nieces.
One of our daughters has married and provided us with one son-in-law and two grand-sons.
The other daughters have provided us with two, equally valued, partners.
Quite a few of our nephews and nieces have, in turn married and provided us with twenty one niece and nephews in law.
And they in their turn have increased and multiplied and produced a running total of fifty one great nieces and nephews.
I must add that this is far from a finished score.
I have, as I write two nephews engaged who will certainly add to the score.
So, if my maths are right (and they rarely are) I have a fair old bundle of close relations.
(I must add that this does not include cousins- of whom I have several dozens!)
My tally of close family comes to One Hundred and Thirty Nine (139) by this latest count.
I consider myself very fortunate to have such an enormous family but, boy am I glad that they are not all on my christmas present list.