Diary of a busyish woman

Hi, An ad in the Southern Star nudged my train of thought for this post. Who are our heroes? How do we identify them? What makes a hero?  Those questions, I'm sure, aren't in a logical order and having recently attended a food safety course led by Denis Kiely , SQT-Training , I should have  a better grasp of this word, logic, and it's step by step thought process. But bear with me, I'm long in the tooth; suffice to say that I left the training knowing a lot more and knowing that I need to know a lot more!!! A sign of a really good course. But back to my original topic:- Hero.  It's a word that packs a punch. You don't call everyone you meet a hero and yet if we look hard enough, there are heroes to be found everywhere and most of them don't actually wear the word emblazoned on their backs or have halo's glowing brightly over their heads.  According to the Oxford English Dictionary , a hero is ' A person who is admired for their courage, outstan...

The narrow path Hi, As a child, I remember that whenever we visited the once derelict Castlefreke Estate , we also had to visit the nearby graveyard near Rathbarry House. In those days, you didn't ask why or whine that you didn't want to go. It was simply the done thing that as soon as the picnic was finished and leftovers and paraphenalia returned to the car boot, the whole family including my maternal grandmother would make what I always thought was an expedition. Of course as soon as we reached the graveyard, we, children,. were let loose to explore with the admonition not to fall into any grave or disturb anything! I regret now that I didn't watch to see what grave(s) my grandmother visited because the visit was at her insistence and the reason now lost in the mist of time. We can only assume that some relations or special friends of hers were buried there. I know that she knew the author,  Lady Mary Carbery and probably a few more as she was once invited to a bal...

Hi If I could type as I drive, I'd probably be writing a post every other day. When I'm driving, I listen to the radio almost all the time, but occasionally something will occur to me so the radio goes off and I take the time to ponder. Today, no driving but something I don't tackle too often - housework! Not my favourite occupation and it seems as soon as I start in one room, there's something more urgent in another. And, of course, frequent breaks so that I can pull a book off the shelf & read for 5 minutes. I don't know where I bought this book, but I'm sorry I haven't opened its pages until today. Add caption It's a book you dip into and fits my mood perfectly. As you may know, my husband, Willie, has been attending events organised by the Irish Timber Growers Association for the past few years. I began to join him about 18 months ago and resurrected a love of nature and trees in particular. Growing up, there was no shortage of tre...

Maybe it’s a good thing that  Advent & Christmas happen at the end of our calendar year. There is very little if any reviewing and critiquing like for example New Year when we’re expected to review the past year and make resolutions for the coming one. I honestly believe that the number of people who have no idea of the reason for celebrating the Christmas season is increasing in Ireland. I suppose it hit home when I realised that the Advent calendar with a different Biblical thought for each day is now a chocolate a day or for the adults a bauble or even an alcohol minitature a day. Does anyone have any comment, I wonder. Is Christmas a stand alone commercial event loosely based on a pretty story or does anyone note there is a very old tradition and belief on which it is based. Sure, the Christian Church has taken over many a pagan tradition from the season timing to the feasting but now the tables are turning and it is increasingly a commercial opportunity to encourage c...

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...