The 2011 Sean Kelly Tour of Waterford - My Big Biking Challenge

With Sean Kelly in Villierstown

  I should have posted this two or three weeks ago as it was the last Sunday in August that the 2011 Sean Kelly Tour of Waterford took place - this was my second time participating and it was a great day out. I really enjoyed it last year and entered this year's tour with a little trepidation as I wasn't as well prepared as I felt I was last year. I hadn't done many long cycles in advance of the mega-50km trip I'd signed up for (the shortest of the three runs on the Tour so I am not that adventurous!) but I had done about 35km the previous week so I thought I wouldn't have too much trouble. So I was thrilled when I completed it in around the same time as last year - at just over 2 hours and 30 mins. It was a fabulous day weather wise - the sun shone, it wasn't too windy and there was just one small sunshower as we entered Cappoquin for the half-way pit stop.

Certified Cyclists!

Jany and Shayne and kids

Hubby Jan did the 90km tour as he has done for the past three years - he started with the 50km the first time he did it so it was such a doddle for him he decided to do the 90km. The first time he did it the route took him from Dungarvan to Carrick-on-Suir and back in a big circle via Clonmel and Ballymacarbry. Carrick is the home of the aforementioned Sean Kelly, the famous Irish cyclist who has done the Giro d'Italia and taken part in the Tour de France on numerous occasions as well as winning the Vuelta d'Espana in 1988.

Waiting for the starting countdown

Jany & Livia, Shayne & Sofia

The route of the 50km is from Dungarvan to Cappoquin via Villierstown, the  home village of another Irish sporting hero - John Treacy who won an Olympic Silver medal in 1984 in Los Angeles in the Marathon, and who was World Cross-Country champion in 1988 and 1989. So he heads up the Irish Sports Council, and is on the Council of Concern, our old NGO where we spent many happy years working overseas in Development Work. Jan was on the Council with John for the past 3 years and he was pleased to meet John after the cycle. John and Sean Kelly and the Taoiseach Enda Kenny all did the 50km cycle and it was very evidently a fun-run cycle for them all as they posed for photos with the punters in Villierstown and after the Tour back in Dungarvan at the Sports Centre. I got a nice photo of Jan and John, and me and Sean Kelly in Villierstown.

Jan and John Treacy

The scenery looked terrific on the day as we cycled through the verdant sylvan by-roads of West Waterford and from Villierstown to Cappoquin we were in the woodlands that border the Blackwater Valley and caught glistening glimpses of the winding river far below the road - yes, that was some climb from Villierstown to the top of the ridge before descending to the Finisk River valley at the wonderful Hindu-Gothic Bridge, a romantic folly built for the new bride of the local Lord of the Manor- Villiers-Stuart of Dromana House in Villierstown, back in the 19th Century.

Jan arrives back in Dungarvan - 90km on.

The Hindu-Gothic Bridge at Villierstown

We had a lovely food stop in Cappoquin where the local community centre was full of delicious food - pasta and sandwiches and Barron's Brack - the local bakery sponsored the lovely bread and fruit brack, their speciality, and we were well fortified after the refuelling to face the return stretch to Dungarvan. There were no challenging hills on this stretch of the N72 and I felt great after the cycle. I met up with Shayne, Jany and the two children, Sofia and Livia, while we waited for Jan to return from the more gruelling 90km trip along the Copper Coast and the Geo-Park of the old Copper Mines of Bonmahon and along to Tramore. There are some devilish hills on that coast road - the cliffs are indeed scenic but they're also very high when you try to cycle along from sea-level to cliff-top road. He was back in just over four hours which was pretty good for such a difficult trip - and the pros were by then coming back from their 160km mountain challenge through the Comeragh Mountains.

The dappled road from Villierstown to Cappoquin

I hope you enjoy the photos I'm sharing with you - and it gives you an idea of the fun and delights of the day. I do hope to keep up the cycling year round but it's always more challenging in the winter to cycle during the week especially as it's dark so early. I will try to get out on the weekends but they are so full of activities with kids and grandkids that it's hard to prioritise cycling in my me-time!

Woolly Legwarmers and Ripping Recession Recycling

The finished legwarmers

I've just updated my blog posting settings to the recommended easy-to-use one so I look forward to hassle-free uploading of posts in the future - or going forward as our ghastly politicians say. The doom and gloom is getting worse by the minute so I thought I'd just share my latest knitting project with you all.

It's short and sweet - a pair of black cable and rib legwarmers for our son Shayne's fiancée and mother of our beloved granddaughter Sofia. Jany asked if I'd knit legwarmers for the winter so here they are. It's a bit hard to see the cable and rib textured pattern in the black but they are quite cosy and warm, (doh, so that's why they're called legwarmers - never have guessed!) and hopefully they'll fit the bill nicely.

I knitted them over about two weeks - I wish I had more time to just knit but work tends to get in the way - as does life in general! I got the pattern as a free download from Ravelry and that is a terrific resource for someone like me who enjoys making new things but might be afraid to venture into unchartered waters. There are millions of patterns - many free downloads - out there and in various knitting blogs there are links to patterns or actual patterns available. You might even be able to read this pattern if you click on the photo. Otherwise here's the link. 

The Pattern for the legwarmers

Just click on the PDF button to get the pattern - it's that simple! You can use pure Merino wool which would be lovely but I didn't - just got a 2 x100g. acrylic yarn, which was cheap and easy to knit. I might make Merino ones later on if I see how these ones look and wear - certainly for warmth you can't beat Merino!

Cable and Rib pattern - legwarmers

Here you can see the finished legwarmers with the cable and rib pattern clearly visible. It was a 12 stitch repeat over 4 rows, and a doddle to do if you have ever worked cable - I used a cable needle for convenience and 4 x UK size 11 DPNs (Double Pointed Needles) - that's 3mm metric and between 2 & 3 US size - how confusing is all that?

The end result

The other innovation for me was to recycle a ribbon-yarn jumper I bought for €7 in Shaws department store in Dungarvan, the town where I'm based for work. It was fine on the rack but not on this hanger - I looked a sight - frumpy and chunky. I'm definitely not as bad as this made me look. So it was at the back of my clothes rail for over a year, and I was clearing clothes out for charity and found it. I thought what a shame to discard it (or foist it on a charity recipient!) as the yarn was lovely. So I decided to rip it - never having done this for a shop-bought item before. Most rip-offs are my own disasters - so it was a new challenge.

A close-up of the yarn

 I got busy with the seam ripper and scissors and had to decide where to cut and unpick - the neck I abandoned as a lost cause as it wasn't worth the few grams of wool I'd salvage - so the stash came from the back, two sleeves, and the front from the V-neck down. Totally - 350 grams - about 12 ozs if my calculations are correct. I have a nice ribbon yarn pattern for a jumper, or I might make a nice cardigan - not sure yet - any ideas out there? I already have a burgundy ribbon yarn cardi - nice and loose and comfy - so if I had a jumper I'd be in the Twin-Set set!

Yes! the makings of another jumper!

Weigh-in

Today is 20-10-2010 - some clever clogs even took photos of their clocks at 20:10 - 'fraid I wasn't that ahead of the posse so I didn't, but that's probably the last of the interesting dates till next year - Armistice Day will be cool - 11-11-11.

Socks on the Rocks - and the Beach - Knitting to go

Here are some of my recent knitting projects - I already told you about the gloves I made during the summer, and the kick I got out of trying something totally new. Well that's probably what inspired me to try my hand at knitting socks. I had a bit of a hang-up about these as I had some residual PTSD (Post-Traumatic Sock Disorder) from school where I remember turning heels as a particularly cruel form of nun-administered torture where ripping and restarting resulted in a grubby straggly distinctly unwearable sort-of sock.

I never looked back until now - and boy am I glad I did! I have really enjoyed the challenge of making these two great pairs of socks, and they are quick for on-the-go knitting - on the bus, train, car (as a passenger, I hasten to add!) and during your lunch break on the beach, as I did yesterday.

The mint socks you see here are a lacy pattern from Cascade Yarns which is a free download from their site here and which are also on Ravelry which I recently joined - there are so many knitting sites and wonderful projects for sharing that you need never buy a pattern again. I just love the various books and have learnt a lot of tips from them on how to perfect different techniques I thought I knew - and did, just not quite as good as I do now.

The lavender socks are from my old reliable book How to Knit that my gloves came from. They are simply plain knitted socks which I embellished with a few daisy stitches embroidered on the side in hot pink - sadly not on these photos but they really look funky and a bit dippy-hippy. These were easy-peasy to knit, and once I mastered the heel flap turn I was delighted with myself. There are a variety of heel-turns and I've only done these two flaps so far, but there are a myriad out there for future socks - I could become a terminal bore about knitting and socks, so stop me in time - it could be catching!


There's a wonderful sandspit near my work area called the Cunnigar which is about two miles long - it stretches across most of Dungarvan Bay from Ring, where it's accessible by road, towards Abbeyside across the bay from Dungarvan, and there was talk of bridging it over a century ago as part of a relief scheme mooted by the board of Guardians of the local Workhouse, but that didn't happen. It would have destroyed what is now a virtual nature reserve, as it is a haven for birds and small wildlife, and the tides can still flow undisturbed in and out of the harbour at Dungarvan, while the shallows on the seaward side are home to numerous oyster beds of the local fishermen in Ring. At low tide there's a vast grid of oyster beds visible which vanish when the tide comes in.

Yesterday I walked about half way along the Cunnigar, and took some photos of the sea and sky, with the tractors on the sands away in the distance. I often wonder how much time they have before they have to return to safe ground and avoid being swamped. I had my lunch sitting on the wall overlooking the beach and thought how lovely to enjoy the outdoors in late September - the weather was warm and sunny and I knitted some more sock rounds.

The evening before I was at a Trade Union meeting in Waterford and as I arrived early I had something to eat in the Ramada Viking - they do lovely bar food there - and spent a quiet hour there knitting and reading after I'd enjoyed my cajun chicken wrap. So I can see myself as a latter-day Madame Defarge - albeit less ghoulish and knitting with a purpose I hope - and always have a little bag with some knitting to go with me.

My next project are legwarmers for my future D-i-L Jany - I've got this great cable pattern from Ravelry and will get started this weekend - watch this space for the end result whenever I get there.

The Photos show various stages of socks -
and the lovely views from my walk along the Cunnigar yesterday in Ring.

Cycling Cruise - the Sean Kelly Tour of Waterford 2010

I did it! I took part in my first cycling event today and absolutely loved it - the 50km Sean Kelly Cruise in the Tour of Waterford 2010. Long-time readers of this blog will know that hubby Jan did this cycling challenge for the past few years and I have been on the sidelines to cheer him on and welcome him past the post last year, which is documented here.

This year was different though. I got a bike for my birthday in March, and you can read about it here - it's a lovely lipstick red Hybrid Kelly's Kappa bike, part touring, parttown bike. Suits me to a tee, and I even got a basket much to the horror of the cycling purists in the family. It's black wire mesh and detaches from a small fitting on the handlebars, and is perfect for those little forgotten messages (= things from the shop - a peculiar Hiberno-English-ism which tends to confuse anyone unfamiliar with our oft-obscure terminology). I knew Jan was planning his assault on the 90km Coastal Route, which was pretty daunting as it traversed plenty of steep climbs which would challenge the pros, let alone the amateur enthusiast. I wondered whether I'd be able for the 50km and decided to get a bit of training done. Shayne, our eldest son, decided to go on this one too, using his dad's old racer.

So since June/July I've been cycling regularly, about three times a week, from a 15km cycle a couple of evenings after work to a longer one at weekends - the longest being39km. Not alone did I surprise myself at my ability to cope with the longer runs, but I felt great afterwards, despite being exhausted when I came home at first. My stamina improved very quickly as did my speed andIenjoyed seeing the proof of my progress when Jan logged it onto a nice Excel spreadsheet with line graphs as evidence. For example (without getting pedantic or too boring!) the first 15km I did took just over an hour, whereas now I can do it in about 50minutes. I knocked 9 mins off a 22km run in the space of three weeks, which I felt very smug and virtuous about. I got plenty of encouragement from Jan and the family and also colleagues at work, some of whom were participating themselves or had family members taking part.

The great thing about this cycle is that it's all about fun. There's a professional element to the longest run, 160km, and then for the amateur enthusiast like hubby there's the 90km run. That's along a rugged coastal road with lots of steep inclines and some spectacular scenery - the Copper Coast and Geopark are famous for their beauty and historic significance in the Bunmahon area of Co. Waterford and the scenery might serve to distract the cyclist from the pain inthose calf and thigh muscles on the climbs!

The 160km mountain trail is for the serious amateurs and the professionals who enjoy a day's stage equal to an Etape in something like the Tour de France or the Giro or Vuelta. There's steep mountain passes to negotiate and endurance is needed to keep going to the end. So not for the fainthearted, and it was evident in the numbers that the 160km drew the biggest crowd and that cycling is fast becoming one of Ireland's most popular leisure and sporting activity.

The 50km started cycle for the beginners like me and eldest son Shayne was perfect - short enough to be attainable without huge time commitment and long enough to give a good adrenaline rush and an immense sense of satisfaction. And there was plenty of time to enjoy the view. The scenery from Dungarvan to Cappoquin via Ballinameela and Villierstown is beautiful especially the Villierstown-Cappoquin section which runs parallel to the Blackwater River and foms part of theDromanaDrive, a scenic route along back roads in the lands once owned by the local governor Lord Villiers-Stuart for whomVillierstown is named. Nowadays Villierstown is famous for an Olympic medallist John Treacy who won Silver in the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics in the Marathon. Today Villierstown was transformed into a haven for cyclists, who were given refreshments at the first water stop of the day. A very welcome break after 23km and I enjoyed the banana and Flahavan's Flapjacks (locally made in Kilmacthomas - supporting local produce is a hallmark of these events).

In Cappoquin we had a food stop in the magnificent new Community Centre, and I had to laugh to see the bikes thrown around outside in seemingly random fashion - everyone being very trusting. Shayne was on a racer and he went ahead quite early on, and we didn't meet up till Cappoquin when he passed me on the home stretch while I was heading for the food stop. We had pasta and sandwiches and delicious Barron's Brack, with hot tea and plenty of meeting up with other cyclists and some friends who were around the hall. The home stretch to Dungarvan was along the N72, the main road I drive daily to work. It was a lovely run with gentle hills and hollows, and a nice tail wind to push us along. I felt no pain and apart from the odd numb bum, which was alleviated by dismounting for a few minutes rest every 15km or so, I felt great at the end. Shayne and me waited for Jan to return from the 90km, which he duly did, and it was a far greater challenge than ours, as some of the hills were so steep many had to dismount to walk them.

We took some photos at the start and finish, and a few along the way of the rest stops. We collected our certificates of achievement at the end, and I will be very proud of mine, as I hope it will be the first of many Tours of Waterford for this keen cyclist. By the way, my time was 2hrs and 30 mins for 44km, which was what I clocked up - my speedometer wasn't connecting at the start - but I am very happy with that - average speed was over 17km/hr, given the crowds that was pretty good, as there was little opportunity for setting a pace along those narrow roads for the first 15km. So if you are contemplating a new hobby or some gentle exercise, you could do worse than to take up cycling - I did after a 30 year gap and it got bridged in no time.

A Spelling Howler - or the chickens coming home to roost?

I just couldn't resist this howler I saw last week in the Caravan Park in Clonea outside Dungarvan - no point in not outing it as it is declaring itself to all and sundry on the roadside just at the park entrance. Makes you wonder is this an effort to protect hapless chickens from terrorist dog attacks or are the dogs in Clonea under threat from some wayward fowl? Whichever, it brightened up my evening when I saw it on the way to visit a friend who's spending her summer on the beach and if the weather is good I can't think of anything more chillaxing. We had a very pleasant evening so this just added to the fun.

I posted a few beauties from the local papers some weeks back and I'm happy to report that the Sponsor's are now sans apostrophe and this week are plain old Sponsors! I doubt they read this blog for their Eureka moment but were probably advised that in this instance their use of the "Greengrocers' Apostrophe" was a tad excessive.

This is the fourth post on ghastly grammar and spelling typos and it probably won't be the last - they are so irresistible and if they hit my "Eats Shoots and Leaves" radar then they will inevitably end up here. Have a look at the others here if you feel inclined and I hope you'll get a giggle from them as much as I did - I'm not quite Lynn Truss going around hijacking offending signs with stick-on apostrophes, but I do try to capture them for posterity when possible, though I often miss the best because the camera's not to hand passing the butchers, or the small ads in the supermarket notice board, or wherever unedited notices are posted.

May they brighten up your day wherever you are - and keep on sharing your gems with the rest of the blogosphere. I've had some great links to other blogs in the past via comments so keep them coming.

St. Patrick's Day Celebrations - Past and Present

I know it's a few days after St. Patrick's Day and I don't really have a lot to write about it as I posted last year also on the National Holiday - suffice to say that this year I went to two parades - one in Cappoquin, which is fairly new to parades, and Dungarvan which has been running forever and is very similar year after year. Cappoquin has only been running parades for the past year or two so it is still in its infancy and there's great credit due to the organisers for such great enthusiasm.

The parade was on at 12.30pm and teen daughter was in the Lismore Foróige Club group - that's the National Youth Development Organisation, which runs Youth Clubs at local level and provides training and leadership skills to young people and the club leaders. So they were all kitted out with logo-ed T-shirts and marched through Cappoquin. I took some photos and videoclips and hope they give a sense of the day. As Cappoquin is twinned with a French town, Chanat-la-Mouteyre, they had a French element in the parade and these "French" folk gave out free French Onion Soup and yummy cheese and baguettes to all comers - a lovely gesture that beat the free cuppa tea in Dungarvan!



You may wonder where's the spirit of St. Patrick? As most of you who know the way these parades go, they are a celebration of things local and Irish, a showcase for all kinds of local talent - bands, Irish dancers, community groups and clubs, as well as local sponsors of floats - so it can be quite a hotchpotch of displays and groups on the march.

The best float (which was in both parades) was the Tiger Woods PGA Tour - you can see the photo of the car crash on the flatbed truck here - it was very funny and was done by a group from Melleray who always excel at creativity when it comes to floats and fancy dress. The PGA in this instance bears no reference to golf in the acronym if you can read what's on the photo!

There were some lovely set dancers from Cappoquin and I have a video clip which I will add here, as well as a clip of the parade.



There are usually a selection of local dignitaries on stage - which is often a mobile stage in the town square (in the past it was often a trailer or the back of a lorry but these days they tend to be purpose-built mobile units, albeit on the back of a lorry!) In Cappoquin the County Mayor was at the parade, as she is from there, and this year the County Councillors made a great show of not going to New York as they had done in more boom times, given that these trips were generally roundly condemned as worthless junkets by the taxpayers and electorate of the county.

Nationally there are huge parades in the main cities, with Festivals lasting up to a week in Dublin, where there are spectacular Skyfest fireworks displays as well as the trad parade. I used to love the Dublin parade when the kids were small and we went whenever we were in Dublin on the day.

Of course Paddy's Day is a much bigger event for expat Irish and when we lived abroad we celebrated with great gusto, with Embassy bashes and black-tie balls in Dar-es-Salaam, while Concern seemed the natural organisation to lead the partying in any other workplace, like Iringa in Tanzania and Vientiane in Laos. In our early days in Bangladesh Concern always hosted the official Paddy's Day party while the British High Commission put on a formal evening around the actual day to mark the occasion as we had no Embassy in Dhaka and were under the protection of the High Commissioner (for those who don't know, the High Commissioner is like the Ambassador but only in the Commonwealth Countries - so that included Bangladesh and Tanzania.

Of course the Irish do know how to party and my most memorable Paddy's Day has to be the one we hosted in our home in Vientiane for everyone or so it seemed - we had a wonderful garden for parties and it was swelteringly hot and humid, we had a band and green beer, and lots of Irish Dancing which became increasingly rowdy and most un-Riverdance-like as the night wore on. At another Lao Paddy's Day party I remember coming home in a Mini with 10 people including a number of children standing up with their heads out the sunroof! Not something to contemplate in this day and age, but that was another time and place.

I hope you all had a great day wherever you were celebrating - it seems like a lot of blogposts have been written about the day so this reflection is just a tad late. I seem to be running to stand still these days!

My First Strike - Picket Lines and the Public Sector

Today was a red-letter day for me as I went on strike for the first time in my life. I spent the day on or around the picket lines at Dungarvan Community Hospital which was our designated local workplace for picket duty and it was an absolutely filthy day weather-wise. It was cold and windy and rained from about 11 o'clock onwards.

The strike was the culmination of a joint effort by all the Trade Unions in the Irish Congress of Trade Unions (ICTU) to galvanise the public sector against the government's unfair targeting and villifying of the civil and public sector workers in the current recession. It was not an impulsive or petulant action - rather it was the result of frustration at the intransigence of the government to listen to or engage with the Union leadership in any serious negotiations on proposals to cut pay again in the coming budget.

We are prepared to do our patriotic duty as Brian Lenihan called it last year in his Budget speech but we are not prepared to be sitting ducks for slash and burn cuts and back-door hatchet jobs on our pay, while the banks are being bailed out and many of the self-same bankers that bankrupted the country (apt word that) are wondering how soon they can bring back their bonus payments and lift the cap the government imposed on their CEOs. €500,000 was the cap set just in case any of you were wondering how heartless it was to expect a bank CEO to survive on a pittance pay cut - now that's down from the €2.9 million that the (former) head of Bank of Ireland was paid last year and his response at being asked whether he was taking a pay cut last year was to say that he too would be earning less than €2 million this year! A joke that spectacularly backfired as the opprobrium of a nation poured down on his hapless head and he slinked out the door - followed by a fat pension. That's falling on your sword Irish business style while the nurses, gardai (police), civil and public servants are getting unilateral levies of approx. 7.5% imposed on their pensions and mileage pay cut by 25% without any consultation last May. So that's the background to today's day of action and strike.

I am the local representative for the INO (Irish Nurses' Organisation) Public Health Nurses and I ended up organising things for our members in the Waterford area. This was mainly communicating and liaising with everyone and ensuring that everyone knew what to do, as well as finalising picket duty rosters. This meant everyone was expected to do a two-hour stint on picket duty and they had to sign in as well, so that the union will know who participated. There is a strong moral obligation on members to fulfil their role as union members by taking an active role in a strike or any industrial action and thankfully most INO members recognise that and showed up and did their patriotic duty today.

There is a real sense of grievance at the treatment and perception of the public sector that is promulgated by the right-wing media and by the government which will lead to further unrest and probably more strike days. There is a real divide and rule approach pitting the public and private sector against each other which is detrimental to both, and yet it is very hard to stay silent in the face of such vilification. Many in the private sector are of the opinion that we should be grateful to have a job and perceived job security and put up or shut up.

As someone who worked in both the private and public sector I can appreciate some of the frustration of those poorly paid private sector workers who are now in very vulnerable situations and at risk of losing their jobs but the country needs solidarity not division right now - the vitriol towards the public sector is unfairly tarring everyone with the same brush - we accept the need for restraint in public spending and that's why we can't understand why there isn't a higher tax band for high earners as proposed last year by Labour, and why the TDs (MPs) are able to draw down their pension after 10 years services while we wait 30-40 years to retire on a half salary, or why the low paid are always being expected to contribute disproportionately. Mary Harney told people to shop around - now when they go to Newry and other Northern Ireland towns to shop they are accused of economic treason by spending their money outside the state!

This will go on - but for now I am stopping. We may be back on the pickets on December 3rd if the Union-Government talks are stonewalled.

Champagne Socialists on the town - bargain-basement fine dining

I had a very enjoyable day at the Labour Women's Conference last Saturday, and I have already blogged about it in my previous post here. After all the hard work was over, and the delegates left the Mansion House, those of us in the Waterford delegation who were staying in Dublin decided to head for a bite to eat. Half jokingly we said how about somewhere like Marco Pierre White's - and found that research had already been conducted which revealed that as it was Dine in Dublin week, we could actually afford to eat in places we could previously only have dreamed of eating in!

What this meant was that dinner in a posh place like this was discounted to €20 or €30 for a four-course meal with tea or coffee. Now that was more like it. I rarely eat out at night, and at most would eat lunch in a bar or restaurant with colleagues once every few weeks. I usually bring a sandwich and fruit to work and occasionally have something from the Naked Lunch van at the Dungarvan Farmer's Market on Thursdays - they have spicy lamb burgers to die for and their sausage rolls are equally tasty - but that's weather permitting when you can sit out and pretend you are on some continental terrace instead of in the square in Dungarvan!

We were shown some of the wonderful reception rooms in the Mansion House by our hosts for the day, the Labour Lord Mayor Emer Costello and her husband Joe, who's a Labour TD (is he the Lady Mayoress, we wondered?) We got a glimpse into the somewhat surreal life of the Lord Mayor, who receives visiting dignitaries in these imposing rooms, including all visiting ships' captains - as the head of Dublin Port. There is a Lady Mayoress's drawing room where Joe can hang out.


Back to posh dining. We had left it way too late to book and didn't think we'd a hope of a table, but the recession must have left its mark as we were immediately shown to a table on the terrace which was cosy and warm with lots of wall heaters, and nice ambient lighting. Our corner table which was perfect for people-spotting, and we had a lovely dinner, with plenty of variety on the menu.

I had the gravadlax starter, posh fish'n'chips with mushy peas and a delicious sauce and Eton Mess for dessert. The latter was new in name for me, as it's simply meringue, strawberries and cream mixed together in a sticky, crunchy melt-in-the-mouth...mess. We found the service good and the staff friendly and professional, which is infinitely preferable to the snooty aloofness that can be found in uber-pretentious eateries that have got a bit above themselves from their celebrity chef links.

The Waterford Labour women were out for an enjoyable evening and we had good "craic" (which is not what it sounds for the uninitiated) and took some funny photos of each other as well as the food. After coffee or tea we headed off to our different destinations.

I got the bus back to "de Nortsoide", home of the Spire, with its myriad witty nicknames, and Big Jim Larkin on the photos. It's also that pariah state that's such anathema to the fictional Southsider Ross O'Carroll-Kelly, as well as home to our former Taoiseach and wannabee Presidential candidate, Bertie Ahern, the self-proclaimed Socialist.

We certainly put the social back into Socialist last weekend.

Photos show Jane, Dee, Lorna and me enjoying our night out, and the menu, and my dishes, as well as the Spire and Big Jim Larkin

The Lesser-Spotted Google Earth Street View Car

Yesterday I was driving on my rounds at work and around lunchtime I was planning a visit to a remote farmhouse down a very narrow country road. Imagine my surprise when I turned into the road to find myself behind a very odd looking car, a brand new red Opel Astra - 09 registration - with a tripod on the roof-rack topped with a weird looking object that I knew to be the Google Earth Street-view Camera.

These strange cars have been spotted like rare birds in the vicinity of Dungarvan in West Waterford in recent weeks and this is the third time I've seen them. This time I was prepared and like a true anorak I whipped out my trusty Panasonic Lumix digital camera and took a few photos.

I have been amused at the indignation that has been expressed over privacy invasion and civil liberties in the UK in recent weeks (where Street View has gone live and been given a mixed reception) by the "victims" of this cruising camera car. There have been some hilarious stories of people spotted where they shouldn't have been, or cars that weren't pixelated out (number plates and faces are supposed to be pixellated but there have been glitches) and identified by spouses as being where they weren't meant to be. Also people have been indignant that their des res isn't all it's cracked up to be on the property pages when the prospective buyers can google earth it in its original street view!

I absolutely adore Google Earth and Google Maps - I think it was made for nosey parkers like me who love to see where places are and how they look, and since discovering it some years back I visit regularly. I know where my friend in New Jersey lives, and what her street looks like, and I also know that my son's rooftop of his apartment block is visible quite clearly on it, and I am annoyed that Lismore is not given an enhanced view, and is quite blurry, unlike other cities and towns of Ireland.

Another thing I love about it is that there are plenty of photos posted by various people, and they give a totally different impression of a place. When hubby visited Reykjavik in Iceland last year I was able to see the places he was raving about, like the geysir and the blue lagoon - hot springs in February snow! In Tanzania I can go on a nostalgia trip through Dar-es-Salaam and track the roads I drove daily to and from the International School, or out to Bahari Beach and the Kunduchi guest house where we spent many happy days on visits from Iringa. I can visit Iringa and my old haunts like India Street, Lulu's, Hasty Tasty, and Gangilonga Rock.

Of course I can also see these places on the wonderful groups that have sprung up on Facebook to celebrate places we love. One of my favourite is the group "I know Iringa inside out" and I have posted a number of photos of the kids in their homeschool days there, much to their cringing embarassment!

So if you haven't already got it, get downloading Google Earth for free and enjoy more time-wasting than Facebooking or blogging combined. You can justify it by its vaguely educational geographical appeal, if you need to appease your conscience or your partner! There's even a blogger widget which might be fun to add.

The internet is a wonderful place to connect and reconnect with people, when it is used as such, and I have renewed links with old friends from years ago through this very modern medium.

So the art of letter writing might be dead but as long as it is replaced by good communication by email and blogging I think I can live with it! It's a paradigm shift as the boffins might say but I am glad to be able to join in and go with the flow, and am heartened to see so many of my generation linked up through cyberspace. It makes the world seem a much smaller and more connected place - a global village in a positive way.

To finish up, I want to share this lovely photo of the cherry blossom in full bloom on the N25 ring road in Dungarvan yesterday. It might even end up on Street View!

Spell-check and Grammar Night Classes anyone?

This sign was posted to a pole on the road to work for a week or so last autumn, near Dungarvan in Co. Waterford. I nearly crashed the car when I drove past it the first time and thinking I had been seeing things, I looked out for it later in the day when passing the same spot. This time it was on the way back into town, on the other side of the road. No chance of anyone missing it!

I thought of this when I read Kristin's post on Student Howlers, and on commenting on it realised we are both what could be kindly termed Grammar and Punctuation "Anoraks" - my kids and hubby call me pedantic and they are probably right, but I defend my right to be boringly pedantic in the interest of good English!

One of the funniest books I read in the past decade has to be Lynn Truss's "Eats, Shoots and Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation" which is all about the mangling of the English Language by poor punctuation and grammar. The title comes from the following joke.

A panda walks into a café, sits down and orders a sandwich. After he finishes eating the sandwich, the panda pulls out a gun and fires some shots in the air, and then stands up to go. "Hey!" shouts the manager. "Where are you going? You just shot at my waiter and you didn't pay for your sandwich!" The panda says to the manager "I'm a PANDA! Look it up!" and he throws him a badly-punctuated wildlife manual. The manager opens his dictionary and sees the following definition: PANDA: large black and white bear-like mammal, native to China. Eats, shoots and leaves.

The bugbear for all members of the Punctuation Police has to be the so-called "Greengrocer's Apostrophe" which renders every plural noun a possessive. "Apple's - 6for €1" is a good bargain but gets me off on a rant every time I see it.

The wonderfully curmudgeonly John Humphrys of BBC 4 "Today" fame has written another hilarious book on the same language assassination, called "Lost for Words: The Mangling and Manipulation of the English Language" . Both these books are just the tip of the iceberg of a whole genre of books that lament the sloppiness and lazyness that has resulted in kids being taught English by teachers who never learnt the basic rules of good grammar. Children who don't know how to "speak proper" are writing essays in txtspk ( has been done, in the UK an exam essay was submitted that had been written in the text shorthand that is the first language of all digit-happy children from their pre-teens).

So I was gobsmacked with the poster for the night classes, and wondered how long it would be before someone realised the bloomer. That would be about a week! The school is a very reputable secondary and post-leaving certificate college that runs excellent Fetac courses. I mentioned it to a colleague who had also noticed it. He said the principal had become aware of it, and was probably highly embarrassed that it had been printed and posted without proofing. It makes you wonder about the printers that didn't notice alarm bells ringing. I guess they didn't hear them, as I read an article this week about the havoc wreaked by homonyms (words sounding similar with different meanings: e.g. threw - through; phase - faze) that slip under the radar of the spell-checker. Proof-readers have a whole new challenge now to catch the culprits before they hit the printers.

I hope I am not being holier-than-thou in all this - it is just something that bugs me, and I am not a grammar whiz by a long shot. I was appalling in school in formal grammar; parsing and analysing sentences passed me by without as much as a glance, and I am totally at odds with the rules of adjectives and pronouns and verbs. One thing I did learn in school and at home was to spell correctly and use "proper" grammar almost intuitively - from a lot of rote-learning and by reading widely. My mother was very intolerant of lazy speech and I would never get away with quaint colloquialisms like "I done that" so I guess a lot of it is pretty ingrained.

Thanks to Kristin for inspiring this post, and apologies if I've annoyed some of you by being a tad pedantic on my crusading hobbyhorse!