Thursday, November 15, 2012

What a refreshing response in these days of watered down everything!

In this day of ´watered down´ everything, I hope like me you will be impressed with the clear acknowledgement of error below.  I was so impressed - with my own letter of course to start with. (Hey what can I tell you, I don´t wallow in humility, much as I´d love to say I do!)  But the unambiguous letter of response really had me raising my cup of tea.  
My letter was sent to the Library in Trinity College Dublin, slightly modified out of respect to the addressee.


Dear Sir ,
Allow me to introduce myself.  First let me clarify I am not an Irish scholar, indeed no scholar of any sort.  I am an Irish woman twice blessed however, first because I was born in Kilkenny, and second because I now live in Allensbach a beautiful village in southern Germany that is only a swim away from the island of Reichenau.
Last week I was delighted to visit  the Trinity College Library.  As always the experience was even better than the last time I visited; the display and exhibition`Turning Darkness into Light`around the ancient manuscripts housed in the library was such that one had to be astounded by their beauty and the complexity of their production.  I must thank you and your staff at the library for same.
There is one small issue I would like to draw your attention to.  On the leaflet discussing the Book of Kells, the delightful poem Pangur Bán was printed.  It stated that the poem was written by an Irish monk in St. Gallen,  Switzerland.
 

We can all agree the little poem was written by a monk, possibly Sedulius Scottus sometime in the 9th century.  Likewise it is accepted by scholar and layman alike that the poem was included in cluster of 9 pages known as the Reichenauer Schulheft or Reichenau Primer.  It is also agreed the pages were found on the German island of Reichenau and for various reasons were moved to different locations over the centuries, and that the folia are now housed in St. Paul´s Abbey in the Lavanttal in the Austrian state of Carinthia.
Being  a Kilkenny woman, who now lives not a Katzensprung from Reichenau Island, I concede  I may not have total objectivity on the provenance of a poem about a cat.  That being said, I do most respectfully opine there is enough evidence to suggest that the poem Pangur Bán was written by a Irish monk in the Island of Reichenau.   Or at least an argument for Reichenau is as feasible as St. Gallen.
Most sincerely,
R.C.



From: X

Dear Rosaleen
 
Thank you for taking the trouble to write about this. You are correct, of course, and I can offer no explanation for our error. It will be corrected in the next Book of Kells exhibition, though that will not be for a number of years.
........
With best wishes
 

Wednesday, October 24, 2012

Today I am not so into writing....

It´s a while since I have blogged, and normally I blog happy and good stuff;  I figure most people can get all the misery they want in their own lives without my giving them any more in my blog. 

But I have been sad for sometime.  And angry.  So maybe if I just put it out there, I will be able to go back to my ´happy zone`.  So here it is.

Back in the early 70´s I worked in child care in Ireland.  The idea, which is very good I think, is that one does practical work in the field for two years, and then you go back and study child care. Well I did the practical, but I never could get accepted for training in Ireland, either in child care, or as a social worker.   After several years I gave up and left the child care field altogether.

I am still in occasional touch with some of the children I cared for some 35 years ago. Since then there has been a lot of people held accountable in Ireland for abuse to children in care.  Including in the group home where I worked.  But here is what hurts even more than that.   The woman who replaced me, and who did get trained in childcare,  has been accused by some of the children of abusing them; there is going to be a court hearing over the matter later this month.  I am heart broken, and angry.  If I had been accepted for training, and I never could find out why I was not accepted, I would likely have stayed on in the same group home thus avoiding at least some of the abuse those children suffered.


Friday, September 7, 2012

I don´t know about you, but I just don´t get the $200 dainties thing......

So there I was on my bike meandering along the quiet leafy byways around Allensbach; as I ambled on in this charming pastoral setting by Lake Konstanz, being dazzled by the rays of sunlight dancing on the softly rippling water, against a back drop of the majestic snow covered Alps, an observation of non-world shattering importance occurred to me: I just don’t ‘get’ the expensive lingerie thing!

      Oh the lingerie bit I get; the wearing of nice nearly nothings in the expectation that a romantic liaison, dangerous or otherwise might ensue.  But why expensive.   I mean there you are all dolled up in your nearly nothings in the low light (and unless you are a wife or an ex-wife of Brad Pitt - or Brad Pitt, one should really not be wearing nearly nothings without the ‘assistance’ of low light.  Indeed with six kids under 10, and  not enough sleep by times,  Brad, God bless him, looks like he too might occasionally have need of ‘low light’ these days).  

      So there you are anyway all dolled up in your $200 nearly nothings and the object of your affections cannot keep their hands off you…. And then you shout … “Hey be careful - that’s $200 worth of thong you are groping at there!”…. Well let’s face it, after that, no amount of low light or the Righteous Brothers singing is going to ‘bring back that lovin’ feelin’. The truth is, it’s just ‘gone gone gone’. 

     No, I figure, if  it is a romantic dalliance one is after, one should stick to less costly nearly nothings;  with all that low light and romantic music in tow, whose going to notice/or care if the cut or design of your drawers is ‘designer’ or not.  If one must have La Perla in one’s life, better to enjoy it by one’s self.

       Ah!  Isn’t it just amazing what awareness can present themselves to one as one wanders about in bucolic milieus.
                                                         -----------------------------------------
p.s. 'Someone' in the vicinity ‘who wishes to remain nameless’ opined if woman let the men in their lives buy the underwear, $200 for any ‘under’ item of clothing would not be an issue a woman would ever have to occupy herself with again. 

The alert fans among you will recall this blog posting.  But go on, admit it, it is worth a repeat! R

Friday, August 24, 2012

Welcome to Ardmore!



 

                        Just off the bus - welcome to Ardmore!


What with the Olympics and my particle physics adventures at CERN and what not (you can read all about all that excitement in my last two posts), I have been distracted from expounding on our adventures in Ireland last June.   So now I am back to tell of our few days in Ardmore Co. Waterford, a tiny corner of heaven on the south coast of Ireland.  It is there we had a dream come true, a Jacuzzi, a visit to one of the best preserved round towers in Ireland,  a rather ´out of this world´ musical experience while dinning with cool cousins,  and glorious cliff side walks.  Did I say we gate crashed a wedding?  And a high light for me – seeing a world class Irish dancer do her world class dancing thing.  The best way to go here is with pictures.   So enjoy!

  A rainbow on our arrival



 
Romeo  H had never stayed in a five star hotel and wanted to.  Hey, was I going to object!  Here he is in the Cliff House Hotel; every where you looked the views were stunning.

And so to the jacuzzi....
                           Life ain´t so bad sometimes or wha´




Ardmore village at approx. 11.00 p.m. on the longest night of the year.

This is exactly as I remember Ardmore over 45 years ago. 
  A room with a view

With only 3 months two weeks and four days to the All Ireland Hurling final, wearing the Kilkenny shirt in support of the Cats is obligatorily -  even in bed.



St. Declan´s Oratory.

It is thought St. Declan brought Christianity to the area in the late 300´s or early 400´s... before St. Patrick arrived.

The following photos are of the cliff walk.....








I love this photo of the round tower in Ardmore:  An architectural and historical masterpiece almost a 1000 years old, perfectly preserved.  It is an  invaluable part of Irish history and culture - and there you have a corrugated shed built right next to it!



The cousins. (And ones I would have chosen, even if they had n´t been cousins of mine to start with.)

We met and ´did´lunch together on a sunny day in Ardmore.  Good food, good company, good chat, a walk on the beach afterwards...  Did I say the sun was shining!!!.

A magical day of perfectness!



Heck even if the temperature in the water is 15o C / 57o F give or take a degree or so.  I am in Ardmore, so I have to  go for a swim, that´s the rule.


Well a quick in and out at least....

I love this picture, and the one previous.  The boy above is carrying a hurl and sliotar (a ball used in hurling, also called a puck).  In Ireland, especially in Kilkenny, it is a very common sight to see boys and girls between the ages of 3 and 18 carrying a hurl and sliotar or dribbling the sliotar as they walk.  

But this young lad took the biscuit.  He took his hurl and sliotar swimming!  He is one of the spots you can see in the sea in the previous picture.


 A sign of the times; as a child I recall 3 or 4 trawlers tied up at this pier.  Now there are no trawlers fishing from Ardmore.

  
This gentleman stopped and chatted about his dogs and God and the world!

..... Now if I could only put that peace and ease in a bottle and sell it, I could make a fortune....




.  
 These two musicians played a collection of hand made bells, whistles and boxes that gave unique sounding twangs and twings. Different, but easy on the ear none the less.



 ....And the wedding we gate crashed.

Afterwards we all went for a drink in Gallaghers Pub, which was the setting for the author Nora Robert´s trilogy of love and what not,  set in Ardmore.





 
Seeing Deidre Kiely in action both as a teacher of Irish dance and strutting her world class Irish dancing stuff was amazing. And a privilege.  Ms. Kiely was holding classes on the Thursday afternoon we were in Ardmore.  My cunning plan was to ask if we could look on so that Herbert H would be so inspired that he would take Irish dance classes himself.  
My plan failed miserably! 
When he saw the young girls between the ages of 11 and 14 or so, do these step dance moves so effortlessly, he figured there is no way he could even try to start Irish dancing at age 50 plus. 

There was a consolation however, Deidre Kiely agreed to dance for us.  A wonder to witness!   Unfortunately my pictures don´t do Ms. Kiely, or her students, justice; they moved so fast my camera could not keep up with them.  But I tell you on a holiday already jam packed to the brim with highlights, that 30 odd minutes in Halla Declan on a wet miserable Thursday afternoon was one of the sweetest of memories. 
 






                     
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Wednesday, August 15, 2012

It had to happen, it had to happen....

Going to a completely different aspect of humanity than the super human feats discussed in the blog postings on the Olympics....


Yes folks it had to happen and  I have seen it.  There he was a punk rocker complete with lip/ear/nose rings with varying assorted chains connecting the various rings to each other; he had bothering looking tattoos and a Mohawk hair cut.  No Doc Marten boots however.  ´WHAT NO D.M´s´ I hear you screech.

No.  Instead he was wearing orthopedic sandals!  And  he was moving very very slowing along on his wheely walking chair.

Is this the first sighting of ´senior punk rocker´?  Can anyone fore date my sighting?

A quickie blog posting today.... dealing with Olympic withdrawal  symptoms. Boy was the whole Olympics super or what, right down to the last note from the Who.... More next week when I should have been cold turkyed back to normal....

Monday, August 6, 2012

The Olympics. Wow Oh Wow!

Yes, I say it again.   The Olympics.  Wow oh wow! 

Wasn´t the opening ceremony a wonderful crazy creative event?  I did enjoy it.  And since then, all those nubile perfect specimens of humanity thrilling us with the heights they reach in sporting excellence. I promise, most of the time I am marvelling at the excellence of their endeavors, not their fabulous physiques. - (Oh alright, a good bit of the time then.)

And there I am in awe of sports I hardly knew existed, like those sort of space age indoor bike races, and the trampoline competitions.  Really it is a wonder;  I loved the dressage, the table tennis and the fencing too.  Just about any sport at such levels of excellence can be enjoyed and wondered at.  It is just a pity hurling in not an Olympic sport, Kilkenny would have scooped up all the medals. 

Do you know what Kilkenny and Jamaica have in common?  For such a relatively small part of the world, they both keep on producing world champions. The county of Kilkenny needs little explanation of course: they produce generation after generation of the best hurlers in the world.  Similarly Jamaica produces generation after generation of the fastest runners in the world. -  Did you see how Bolt bolted last night!  (Am I the only ´reporter´on the Olympics who thought to make a pun on ´bolt´!).  He ran 100 meters in 9,63 seconds.  The Women´s 100 Meter winner was also Jamacian, Shelley-Ann Fraser-Pryce; her time was a mere 1.12 seconds slower at 10,75 seconds.  

How is all that for wowness!

But you know, I would love to hear more on the other participants; the people who after years of hard work, time and dreaming get to participate in the Olympics.  And no doubt with great effort on the part of their families too.  I would like to hear those participants´ stories too. I suppose with so much greatness to report on, it would be hard to report everything in an mere 24 hour day.

But I tell you what, if I was a female contestant in the beach volley ball, I would want to wear the men´s uniform.  However fabulous Misty May Trainer et al look, bending over in that little itsy bitys nearly nothing bikini bottom would make me feel I was sharing a tad too much of me with the world.

Last Sunday, we had our own version of the Olympics here in Allensbach:  The 33rd Gnadensee-Schwimmen.  The Gnadensee-Schwimmen is a 1500 meter swim from the Island of Reichenau to Allensbach.  Always extremely well organized by the local life saving organization and various other groups.  About 300 took part in the swim, including moi.

Consider:   

At the 2012 Olympics in London

Mr. Yang Sun from China swam 1500m Freestyle at a time of:  14:31:02. 

Yes, 14 minutes, 31.02 seconds.  He created a new world record.

At the Gnadensee-Schwimmen in Allensbach

Frau Ehinger from Ireland swam 1500 in Rosaleen Style

At a time of:  57 plus minutes.  Breaking absolutely no records of any kind.

See pictures of Frau Ehinger below.  Also of Herr Ehinger who was in attendance to show support for the big swim.







          
P.S. Reminder to Roe:  don´t forget to write a blog post about the time you met Misty May Trainer, Martina Navratilova, Billie Jean King and what´s her face, yes, Michelle Kwan that wonder of the figure skating world. 

-- Now was n´t that little post script a nice plug on the dramas of my life and times!

Sunday, July 29, 2012

The Neolithic age meets the Nuclear Age - up the road from my cousins!


Yes this is wild. The Neolithic Age does meet the Nuclear Age up the road from where my cousins live.  And, I have the photos to prove it! 

To clarify:  The Neolithic Age, or the late stone age when agriculture evolved, is dated back to about 12,000 years ago give or take a century or two.  No problem so far.  


Fast forward 12,000 odd years to last weekend!  


That´s when we visited relations who live near Geneva on the French side of the Swiss-French border.  Their home is just down the road from CERN  - in fact, they pick up their breakfast croissants in the little bakery across the road from CERN. 


It would be very conCERNing for me if my, no doubt otherwise well read blog readers, (all 3 or you),  were left not knowing who or what CERN was.  They do Nuclear Research there, oh you know like particle physics, that kind of thing!   And they have a really cool circular tunnel about 20 miles in circumference, cool - when it is not hugely hot that is, in  which they swoosh particles of matter well over 100,000 times per second.  Yep. no typo there, that is 100,000.   So, you know, that´s the kind of stuff they do at CERN.   And to think my cousins get their baguettes for lunch right across from where this is all happening.  Stop and think about that for a moment.


(To find out more about CERN, you can learn about it on Wikipedia or check out the CERN website:   http://public.web.cern.ch/public/
In addition you could read Bill Byson´s excellent book A Short History of Nearly Everything which tells the stories of ... well ... nearly everything.  His books always include the juicy gossipy bits. - Gossip and knowledge, what´s not to love here!  Anyway, the good Mr. Bryson´s book has a chapter on CERN that´s worth a go over).


Now back to the Neolithic Age meeting the Nuclear Age, up the road from where my cousins live.  One evening we went for a stroll up the road.


On the brow of the hill I could see to the right this  working farm -  complete with ´agricultural odors´, no doubt the same odors ´enjoyed´ by the folks starting to keep cows and chickens etc  some 12,000 years ago!  






 And to the left I could see CERN.  Yes this photo with the big blue boxy business is not an IKEA warehouse, it is the back end of CERN.


In case you think I am making this up, I am including a third photo up close in front of the official entrance to CERN. 
  
 
Wow, to think I got my breakfast croissants right across the road! 
Über cool or what!  

Tuesday, July 17, 2012

The Gardens on top of Kensington Highstreet in London, et al

First, they ARE real pelicans, not plastic statues behind me.  Second, that was not a dramatic heading from moi; these gardens are really on top of a building on Kensington High Street in London.  They were a folly built back in the 1930´s.  A gorgeous folly and a very expensive one.

.
They are presently owned by Mr. Virgin himself, Richard Branson.  It seems that as a young man he wanted to attend a function there but was not allowed in because he had no tie. So he went home.  A while later he receive a phone call from a lady to apologize to him for his not being admitted to the Rooftop Garden because he had no tie; then she went on`...by the way, would you like to buy the place?´   And he did.  I kid you not!






 Should you want to find out more about the Roof Gardens you can check out:
The Roof Gardens  at   http://www.roofgardens.virgin.com/en/the_roof_gardens.





























And you are asking why am I including this boring photo?  This ladies and gentleman, is the street level view of the building on which the gardens are situated.  See the photo below, where you can look up and see the trees.

From here on in, there are just nice photos from a day of wondering around London, albeit a wet cloudy day, so not always a ´sunny view`.



This beautiful fire place is in the Victoria and Albert Museum.  A beautiful place to browse about.









Because of the rain, you may not recognize this photo is of Buckingham Palace.  This was weird for me; less than 24 hours earlier I had seen this same location on T.V. in Germany when it was packed with a full stage of world famous entertainers, the royal family and throngs of people celebrating her majesty´s 60th year on the throne.  Tonight all you could see was a few wet raggy tourists, including moi, a half a stage and throngs of Porta Pottis.

The door from Westminster Cathedral.

For the romantics reading, Prince William and his Mrs. came out through this door way on their wedding day.




Moi standing before Big Ben which is adjoined to the Palace of Westminster, a.k.a. the House of Parliament in England.


This is King's Cross Railway Station from where, on platfrom 9 3/4, trains leave for Hogwarts. As all Harry Potter readers know well.




Drats, I can´t turn this ´up ways´.  None the less,  I am including these few pictures on their side, as  I was only able to take a few photos at the  Palace of Westminster, a.k.a. the House of Parliament in Britain.


Full of history is this Palace of Westminster.  And lots of history, the sort of yummy history that is full of gossip and intrigue.  I wrote about my ´seeing´ St. Patrick here in my last blog post.