Back among the living!

I've been going through a bout for depression for a few weeks. The first signs for me are sleeping too much, losing interest in things I usually love doing and then cutting myself off from friends and family. I've lived with it for years, since I was a teenager and it's sort of manageable, if grim at times.

 So I visited the doc, who told me off for going cold turkey on the Prozac and self-medicating with hippy SAD lamps! Feeling a lot better now and waking up   so normal service about to resume..............

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Dublin for the day

We got cheap flights from Ryanair to fly to Dublin and back. Only £10 return and we were most indignant when they charged us airport fees! We paid a grand total of £20 each for the return flights......When you consider I pay £8.60 return to travel from Weston to Bristol by train,it was a bit of a bargain.

I've never flown Ryanair before and have heard the horror stories so I was pleasantly surprised. Yes, there was a bit of a scrabble to get on first and as the seats aren't numbered and allocated, you just have to sit where there's a free seat, there's no guarantee you'll sit with your friends. We were dotted all around the plane, but it was a short flight, so it didn't really matter. There wasn't much leg room but the seats were comfortable.

When we got to Dublin we got the shuttle bus right outside the airport to O'Connell St. We walked past The Spire, which is incredibly tall new monument, built to replace Nelson's Pillar, destroye by the IRA. Sorry, I couldn't fit it all in one shot!


Here's the bottom:

And here's the top!

Then we had breakfast in Bewley's in Grafton St, famous for being the hang-out of Irish writers, like James Joyce, Sean O'Casey and Samuel Beckett and it's mentioned in Joyces Dubliners. The original decor with stained glass windows is still there and they do a good full Irish breakfast.....Potato farl, bacon, sausage, tomato,black and white pudding, mushrooms, poached egg, toast, orange juice and tea. OK, I was a wimp and didn't eat my black and white puddings........

Then we walked around the shops, all to the sound of Irish music from the gift shops, and passed the statue of Molly Malone, also known to the locals as he Trollop with the Scallops............

Then we took a boat trip on the Liffey,

Ha'penny Bridge

Samuel Beckett Bridge.

They say they make Guiness with water straight out of the Liffey, going by the colour, I think they're right....

There was an art installation by  Fergal McCarthy on the Liffey. It is Monopoly style houses and hotels, which light up at night, it's a comment on the homeless problem in ireland and the vast amounts of money speculated by the banks on housing projects which now stand empty.

And here's the culprits, the AIB, whose speculating in property led to the banking crisis and a bail out by the Irish taxpayers.

The we walked back along the Liffey by the very moving memorial to those who board ships to America to try to escape the potato famine.

So, by then, our legs were hurting and we were all sight-seeing'd out so we adjourned to a pub in Temple Bar. This bit is full of pubs, clubs and restaurants and is the centre of night life in Dublin. We had a pub meal, a few drinks, and we all had some Guinness, even those of us who don't drink it, all to the tune of a live Irish band. Yes, we did make it back on the plane..........

My favourite song to get you in the mood!

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The Donkey Parade at Weston-super-Mare

It was a great idea in theory. Local business's paid £500 each to decorate and sponsor resin donkeys which were to be turned into little works of art and placed in the streets around the town.

There have been similar projects with lions in Bath, dragons in Newport, rhinos
in Chester, elephants in Norwich and penguins in Liverpool.

They are all street art and suffered some vandalism but in Weston it's been so extreme that they had to remove the donkeys from the streets for their own safety. On the first week-end they were put out they were attacked. One was stolen and later dumped with it's legs ripped off, another was thrown in a skip and another had it's tail cut off.

The poor donkeys had to go into hiding, some went home to their sponsors, others are cowering in shop windows until they may a brief appearance on the pier to be auctioned off for charity. 

hiding in Marks and Spencers

This one went to Specsavers.............

lurking in a department store

And taking refuge in the local newspaper office...................

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National Garden Schemes Yellow Book

It's the NGS, the National Gardens Scheme.

Volunteers offer to open their gardens for the public to visit for a small entrance fee which goes to charity. They produce the yellow book with all the gardens and dates they are open. It's a big honour to be chosen because they get lots of people wanting to do it but only select a few. They come and inspect your garden and are on the look-out for unusual plants, designs etc.

My friend Patsy from Weston has been chosen this year, She's got an amazing garden, like a topical jungle , full of plants form her native Jamaica. She had her first open day today, complete with scones and tea!

They featured her garden in the local paper.

Patsy's Garden

These open ideas are a good idea for a day out, if you love gardens, have a look in the Yellow Book for local ones.

Yellow Book

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The grey vote....is it a good thing?

Research from Age UK shows that four out of 10 potential voters will be older than 55. And in  more than 300 constituencies, including 94 marginal seats in England, Scotland and Wales the older voters will be in the majority.

The over 55s tend to turn out more to actually vote than the younger generation and 319 out of the 632 potential seats could be affected, with the older generation having more influence in this election than ever before.

But is that a good thing? Research shows older voters will be concerned about care, age discrimination, the NHS and pensions, all valid points, but they aren't the only issues, are they?

Is it right that one age group should have so much control? What about things like education, job creation and housing? Is there a danger that older voters won't rate these as so important?

 It could be we get more selfish as we get older and don't look to the future of the current and next generation, who, after all, are the one's still out there creating and earning the wealth and paying taxes.

And older people aren't going to be sent out to fight and die in wars but have an interest in maintaining the status quo and safety at home, so will they be happier to send young people away to fight?

As our population gets more top heavy you could get a situation where the young are working much harder, with little hope of owning a home or building a pension, while the older, retired folk who already have these things but are in the majority when it comes to voting, decide how the youngsters hard earned tax money is spent, i.e for the benefit of the elderly!

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Chantel sings Ave Maria

This is my friends daughter singing Ave Maria She sings at weddings, charity dinners etc and has just recorded a CD. She got rejected for 'Britains got Talent'  and i could never understand why, i think she has a lovely, classical voice.

Chantel sings

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Call me Dave

Just a though, is  "call me Dave" so critical of Gordon Browns reputation as a bully because they are used to a much higher standard of bullying in Eton?

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Make Bird cake

I've got a tribe of sparrows squabbling in my garden who would eat a dozen fat balls a day if I put them out. I've got one of those wire feeders but the commercial food blocks to put in them are expensive so to atone for muttering about air pistols when the dawn chorus starts, I make them some myself.

I keep a plastic container that is the right size, and melt some suet or lard in it in the microwave.

You shouldn't use vegetable fat because it doesn't contain enough energy

Then I stir them in a plate of goodies the RSPB  say they are allowed, mostly wild bird seed, with a few oats, a little bit of grated cheese and a few soaked raisins

I let it cool, then put it in the fridge to get really hard

Then I take it out as a block

Hey Presto, Birdie cake, (takes about five minutes!)

                                                                                                                                                                              

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