Munster V. Leinster

Historic day today; two irish provinces played each other in the semi-final of Rugby competition, the Heineken Cup.
Alan is from Munster and I am from Leinster so we each wore our respective jerseys and off to the game. What a shocker! Despite the fact that Leinster were favourites, Munster hammered them 30 points to 6! It was a well deserved win, in fairness since Leinster never really got out of the gate.
So Munster go on to play Biarritz in the Cup Final, in Cardiff, on May 20. The very best of luck to them...
The first picture is of me and Alan on our way to watch the match in O'Reagans, the only pub to show the game.
















And this is me, after the match....

Dog Blog I

Well, I'm back. A bit jet lagged but OK, thanks. Best to move swiftly on, me thinks... Since we arrived in Montreal, Alan has been taking loads of photos of dogs. He has taken many abroad also. He has found that people are usually delighted and flattered when you point the camera at their dogs. And why not, some fine specimens out there and all of them have their charm. So, here's a doggy special, for all you fans out there.
The Scottie dog photo was taken on a wet day last year and the poodle on St Patrick's Day this year. The last one was taken in Chile of a stray dog in some scrubland.






















































!!gap to allow room!!

Dog Blog II

All of these except the last were taken at the start of a charity dog walk last October or so. A dull day as you can see, but the dogs were all well up for the gathering. The last photo was taken on the mountain during the winter; a beautiful young terrier with tremendous bounce.
























































!!gap to allow room!!!

Dog Blog III

Illustrating how dogs will be dogs and not always live up to their owners vision...
I particularly like the before and after shots of the labrador; the second photo is much more true and captures the inner lab. Then the obligatory tree shot with the elegant owner at leash's length. And finally the poor little pug who obviously doesnt feel very cute in his raincoat and would rather be at home by the fire, with a good book.

we interrupt this blog with an annoucement

Bonjour,
Big Teddy's GrandMother passed away during the week, so Big Teddy has returned to Ireland for the funeral.
Our thoughts are with Big Teddy and Family.

.

Ollie and the Silver Maples

This first picture is of our neighbour, Ollie. She is a most friendly cat and for some reason, is most often seen on a Sunday.
She lives about six doors down, on the far side of the back lane. Which is to say she lives on another street. A rather posh street I might add, with very splendid houses. Nothing like our own ramshackle-but-on-the-up street.
I bet too, that her street doesn't stink of barbecued fish every evening. Not that she would mind that, methinks. Our street, however, does have a very strong smell of eau-de-poisson-BBQ in the late afternoon. I assume this is thanks to the clutch of Portugese restaurants in the vicinity. If there is no wind (strangely, often the case), the smell just hangs around the length of our street. Too bad the Portugese bakerys that flank our street don't have a counter-effect. In fact, they don't smell at all for some reason. So many mysteries...

These next photos are of the two trees in our back yard. Due to their summer and autumn foliage (and bark, and shoots, yada yada), I know now that they are Silver Maples. In the summer, they have lots of green leaves with a whitish-grey back. In the breeze then, they appear to be silver. Sadly, that's about the height of their beauty as in the autumn they turn a nondescript yellow. However, they are a tree-mendous (ho ho) asset. They are master climate controllers and keep the house brilliantly cool at the height of summer.
Anyway, here we are in spring and I notice that the two trees are flowering differently. One has dark red buds and the other one has these brownish fluffy things. At first I thought they might be male and female but it seems that maples are not sexed like this. So, I suppose they are different varieties, but who knows which ones? There are an extraordinary number of Silver Maple varieties, it seems. Astonishing for a fairly dull tree. For example, there's 'Blair', 'Northline', 'Skinner', 'Lutescens', 'Lochsteed', 'Elegant', etc etc. The only thing I know for sure is that they are not 'Silver Queen', which has oval leaves. Learning this fact, this evening, nicely put to rest the mystery surrounding the provenance of the absolutely humongous tree belonging to one of our neighbours. That tree is so big, there couldn't be any sun in their garden, come summer. Maybe I'll photograph it in June and you can see the size.

Sometimes it snows in April

Or so the Prince song says. True too in Ireland; snow is not uncommon in April though in general it is unlikely. This photo is of the trees in the little park opposite our house and was taken about 10 minutes ago. Meanwhile, at the back of the house, the snow is sticking and starting to mount up....
Please excuse any mis-spellings involving a lack of 'c'...something wrong with the c on the keyboard.
The photo below is of a happy squirrel taken some days ago, when the weather was a lot warmer. We had brought out our bench from the basement and we put some unshelled nuts out. Like dining at the Ritz for the squirrels it seems as the walnuts and hazelnuts were gobbled up. They hold the nut in their paws and then just rotate it, using their teeth to split the case. Don't fancy getting a bite from a squirrel thats for sure....