Diary of a busyish woman

Hi, You know this is a diary of a busyish woman so when I am really busy, then there's no writing. I'm sure I'm not the only person with this conundrum - it's not that I don't want to write nor that I have nothing to say, but it's to find that window of uninterrupted 'me time'. But back to asking a busy person.... Thursday next, 14th September, 2017, will see the second Food: Fiction, Fads & Phonies seminar take place in the Department of Agriculture, Food & the Marine, Clonakilty. This, I confess, is my baby; my idea which was a spin off from a conversation with one of our speakers, Paul Treyvaud , and it happened. Right up to 48 hours before last year's seminar, I had a phone call asking me if I'd like to cancel the event as there were only about 15 attendees. I was a typical Taurean and refused to countenance an event cancellation especially as I had organised a speaker from U.K. On the day, 22 people came and enjoyed provocative pr

Many moons ago, I was a year behind my peers when I eventually struck out on my own and headed to Cork to begin an intensive secretarial course. My parents decided I should stay in a hostel and that proved to be a learning curve. I always viewed it as a stepping stone but met people who had spent years living there! I became a 'joiner'. It was a case of anything but sitting looking at four walls and I was never the person who'd been involved in sport so voluntary organisations were the natural outlet for me. One organisation very often led to another so that when there was a N.Y.C.I  - 80's Revisited ( National Youth Council of Ireland ) gathering in The Mansion House , Dublin recently, I was delighted to go. From Scouting to church organisations and political, this umbrella organisation crosses many a divide and those people who were involved in voluntary organisations 30 and 40 years ago are still willingly giving their time to the same and other organisations in thei

Summer is coming and in West Cork , we welcome people from all over the world. Some will pass us by on the roads and increasingly, in my view, we spend less and less time going out or indeed going out of our way to meet and speak with people. Perhaps I'm being simplistic by suggesting that from the moment we were able to listen to a radio followed in short order by the television and now computers and telephones, our need to interact with anyone including our nearest neighbours has diminished. Humans are social creatures and one of the reasons that there haven't been more hermits is because we're also curious about what's happening in the world around us. Now the fantasy is touted that you don't have to step outside your front door (or even your bedroom door) for the world to come to you - everything from the clothes on your back to the food you eat to the people you 'virtually' call your friends. I believe this is unhealthy and it horrifies me to watch pe

Hi, Was speaking with a friend of mine recently about food and nutrition. He was telling me that sugar has a huge effect on his mental well being and it's all negative! Into my mind popped the very old phrase, 'You are what you eat' or don't. I've never pretended to have anything other than an ongoing love affair with chocolate. When I worked in Cork City and back in the day when chocolatiers were a rare sight, I remember the first Leonidas shop opening. Friday evening, I would almost always make a detour so that I could buy £1 worth of individual chocolates! These were savoured. Nowadays there are many producing chocolate and the quality varies or perhaps it's my taste that has changed. I'm not too sure if I'm at all unhappy that our bars are downsizing, but even acknowledging the fact tempts me to buy 2 when I really shouldn't. There are a few favourite brands and they're all relatively local: Milseán bars are enjoyed when I need a little

Wedding - 31.03.17 Falling in love was the easy part; planning a wedding - yikes! Niecy Nash Niecy Nash is an American comedian but this quote nails the Wedding Day prep. On our part, it was immediate family only at 8am and all over following breakfast (same day). Willie & I were on the road at 10.30 am to begin 'wedded bliss' and honeymoon at Caherbeg, Rosscarbery, but that's history....  I hadn't been to a wedding in years, but 4 months ago, a long time, very good friend rang out of the blue. She asked us to ensure 31st March 2017 would have no other commitment than attending her wedding.  I looked forward to the day so much and from the moment I walked through the church door at 12:50 (50 minutes early in case of delays on the road), I knew I would have a good time. 39 guests plus the bride & groom is not a big wedding, but for that reason little things can mar the day and are more noticeable.  My friend thought of everything - the church flowers wer

Rev. Jesse Jackson is an American  American civil rights leader, Baptist minister and politician who is extensively quoted. This one seems most apt to me at the moment:   If you fall behind, run faster. Never give up, never surrender, and rise up against the odds.  Focus! This has been a funny few days. In fact on a personal note, since before Christmas I've enjoyed a few highs, but mostly lows. I wasn't feeling the best - no appetite, lethargic, digestion problems - and I put all of this down to flu, which I managed to 'enjoy' twice, but eventually with family pressure, a visit to my G.P. became a reality earlier this week. Nothing major, but it was brought home to me that I'm no longer in the first flush of youth and need to look after myself and my life - become selfish if you will. A tablet a day for a couple of weeks and we'll see how I go, but to celebrate, I returned to my gym, Guerilla Fitness , on Friday, 24th March. I hadn't been in a fortni

The Forbes quote today was: ' Have your own definition of success...so you can fulfill your dreams, not someone else's expectations of your dreams. Elliot Fletcher I read this quote & immediately saved it. Since then, I've looked at it, thought about it, applied it to our situation & to me, and then thought some more.  Let's get real here - if we have children, we have expectations. Be they right or wrong, in various ways, obvious and subtle, we do our best to have those expectations realised from their friends to the subject choices they make in secondary school, college choices, even down to our expectation for their personal lives and the type of person they choose to marry. Ideally, we would like them to be a 'chip off the old block'.  It's not going to happen! Even though when we see children and you'd know who they were before they spoke as they are so like a particular parent, currently all children are the product of two peo

Hi everyone, I think my post about being Over 50 & Seriously Unfit must have tapped a few people on the shoulder. I hope none is as unfit as I was & over such an extended period, and that the article I wrote will encourage people to do rather than think about exercise. To a degree, it comes down to self-belief, I think. If you're hit regularly with negative comments, then it is only to be expected that you'll start to believe them. You may wonder why I used the verb 'hit' but that's what it can feel like - being flayed by tongues & words. In my case, I know that those who told me that I couldn't participate in this or that exercise or sport, were doing it for the very best reasons. Looking back on my teen years, I always seemed to be on the edge looking in because I couldn't get involved. So how did I cope? There were two sides to the equation: - the non-participant role which could have led to me withdrawing from inter-action with my peers e

This is a real bugbear of mine and the longer we're in the 'food business', the more it irks me. I love nothing better than eating from a menu where the provenance is defined - whether the animals have been reared organically, free range, chemical free or intensive; the vegetables come from wherever; even milk and cream. I admire the many dining establishments who genuinely try to use as  many as they can source & afford. Unfortunately when I see words like 'local' I tend to see red. Local is like artisan. Who's applying & indeed checking the definition? A few years ago, I enjoyed a weekend in Killarney, and as I was on a 'weekend off' decided to forego the full Irish breakfast in favour of the cold meat plate consisting of local meats. Foolishly I assumed these meats would have been sourced in Co. Kerry or at most West Cork, but no, they had been sourced on the island of Ireland! To an American who is accustomed to vast distances, and the not

Christmas time is hectic in every food producer's business especially when in fresh produce, so yesterday I spent in the office - filing, filing, checking information, filing, sorting a few queries, and still my desk isn't clear. I thought, 30 years ago, that the advent of computers would reduce if not eliminate paper records.  At the time, I remember I worked for a stockbroker as a very junior Junior. It was fascinating. Every day these cards would arrive and it was my job to file them removing the old out-of-date cards. These contained information on company prices; trends; shares etc. Because of where the office was situated, I was also responsible for filing the exact same information in the Cork Stock Exchange. This quiet room situated at the back of the buildig was hidden behind a heavy green curtain in the Y.M.C.A. building in Marlboro St,. Cork. With the curtain closed and the door locked, I would spend a few minutes after filing to just look at all the files and infor

Hi I've become quite fascinated in recent years with obituaries whether I knew the person or not. If that sounds morbid, it's not. It's really an opportunity for the writer to essentially write a critique of a person and his/her life. As long as there's nothing slanderous, I don't think there are any real limitations on what's written and published unless one takes the difference between good and bad taste into account. It's like a eulogy at a funeral. I had never heard a Eulogy until one of my grand-aunts died and on an unseasonably hot April day in Kinsale in 1976, I sat in the Methodist Church and really wondered if, somehow or other, I was at the wrong funeral. I remember taking a quick look at the congregation and, no, there was my family, Auntie Mabel's family, friends and relations. Then I wondered if the speaker could have been at the wrong funeral. In fact that's the conclusion I've reached and maintained in the intervening years. The

Post Christmas exhaustion left me open to infection not the blues. From  http://articles.bplans.com/ Hi, One of the problems being busy is that if you have a chance to stop, the body goes into downtime and lets you know in no uncertain terms that there's a time when rest & relaxation is mandatory not optional. Exhaustion Emoji Last weekend, I wasn't feeling too good, but put it down to general tiredness. During the week, I had what I thought were a recurrence of  'hot flushes' which I hadn't suffered for a few months. Finally on Tuesday, I realised as I drove towards home, that things weren't adding up. Made an appointment and visited my G.P. Explained my symptoms and one of her first questions was to ask if I had taken my temperature! I think she held back on the laughter by great self-discipline when I explained why not. Anyway, I threw in a sore, hot ear & the verdict was an ear infection and flu. No, not a heavy cold, but flu. Ther