Known to the Police?

The village 'Centre' gets new varnish in the main hall in
this 365 offering.

First, a little more on the Gallowglass Warrior featured in the last post, if you'll bear with me. I had a root around (not too hard!) and found that our man is the work of an African born, UK-working sculptor name of Clare Bigger. The website has it that "Clare Bigger’s sculptures are all about movement.  With subjects ranging from athletes and dancers  to race horses, cats and birds of prey, her sculptures can be anything from 10cm – 10m high.  She works in stainless steel which allows her to create light airy structures which are both strong and weather resistant.

A bird in the hand? Hubbard Chick.

Clare has always had a keen interest in sport (which includes a black belt in Tae Kwon Do) and her work often reflects this, its dynamic nature capturing a dancer balancing on point or a sprinter in full flight. Clare Bigger’s sculptures are a revelation, a celebration of life and the spontaneity of movement.

She was born and brought up in Africa and has since travelled extensively with destinations including Solomon Islands, Bhutan and Costa Rica."

Some good curds in the latest goats' milk cheese batch.

Her website has an impressive gallery of pics of her work. I contacted her just to say how much I admired her warrior, that I had posted a blog on the subject (I hoped she approved) and that I was trying to get a picture of the guy silhouetted against the sunset. She replied that she was delighted that I liked him, had enjoyed the blog and was looking forward to my sunset pics. I have since found out that a local pub is holding a light hearted competition to choose him a name - I'm not sure what Clare would make of that! I suppose it depends on what name they choose.

Pre-game huddle for the boys in black and white.

Meanwhile the ever more diverse campaign to find interesting things to photograph for '365' took me into the world of sports photography. Not having a big interest in sport, I do not go there every often and had not actually been to the local GAA (Gaelic Athletic Association - it covers all the good honest Irish sports like Irish football, hurling and handball) ground when a game was on in all the 4+ years we have been here. It was a bit of an adventure with me the nervous newcomer creeping warily onto this hallowed turf of all things rough, tough, Irish, athletic and sporty.

Ah well, I shmoozed up all the right people and even went to see club chairman to check it was OK to sneak around the boundary with my big 'pap' lens, a 100-400 mm telephoto like a newspaper man's. The club (Éire Óg - pronounce it 'air' and then 'og' as in bogus; it just means "Young Ireland") were playing rivals 'St Croan's' that day. Our lot play in black and white, so I just had to make sure to get good pics of the boys in black in the sunny first half before the drizzle set in at half time and I had to pack away the gear. Our lot co-operated by putting in plenty of attacks which brought them up 'my end' so I got some pics which have pleased those in the know who have seen them so far. I have found out since, however, that 'we' lost in the end 2-6 to 0-16 (12 points to 16) but I enjoyed my involvement and they know I am happy to come take some more in future games.

Carrying on with the Hubbard harvest. This is bird #7 of 12. 

So, what's all this about the Police, then, in my title? Well, it's like this, m'lud. UK readers may not know that the Irish Police are called "An Garda Síochána" (The Guardians of the Peace), and the officers are known as 'Guards' or 'Gardái' (gard-ee), Garda Sergeant and so on. They are a modern force, very similar to the UK force, equipped with all the modern gear you'd expect and dealing with similar problems plus given to a bit of cruising around getting to know the locals and the territory - Community Policing, I suppose. Out on my dog walks I occasionally see them driving about but none had ever stopped to chat or ask me anything and I'm fine with that. Probably like everyone else, I immediately start to feel guilty if a policemen stops me and start dreaming up things I might have done or seen, so easier if you just avert your gaze and slope by un-noticed!

Our current pair of broodies - 'Crate Girl' and 'Dustbin Girl', both
due in the next couple of days. Can we arrange a happy event
while the guests are here?

Not so a couple of days back when the car stopped and the boys in blue fancied a lengthy chat with me. This is how I described it on Facebook.

"(Relatively) new kid in town, happy to chat and 'explain myself' to two coppers (Gardái) in a car who pulled up when they saw me out with the dogs. Anxious, of course to let them know that I was 100% law-abiding, harmless, no trouble etc. Gave them the abridged life story, bit about the house we've done up (which was once owned by retired guard so is well known here-abouts). Of course, being police, you'd know that they were sussing you out between the lines etc but hey, open and honest me, Officer. Cheerio then, off they drive.
It's only then I look down and see the lurid spray of blood on my trouser leg which can only have come from the chicken I dinged just before the dog walk. They flap their last, sometimes and the blood can go everywhere. That's my story, anyway. " Ooops. One friend on FB even offered to cook me a cake with a metal file inside it in case I got arrested next time and slung in the local lock-up.

Not the best pic - I only had the standard lens on when this
dragon fly started laying egg after egg in our pond margin.
This shot is cropped out of the middle of a bigger pic so has
lost quite a lot of detail. Sorry, species is unknown. 

The rest of our news is about getting ready for an invasion by some UK guests; these are a couple we have had before but in the interim had used 'their' room as storage for the house-move-to-Sligo dept. They could have slept in there but would have been sleeping in fear of an avalanche of boxes and black bin-liners falling on them in the night. We shifted all that stuff yesterday and were able to give Liz "her room back" so today has been a blizzard of cleaning that room and assorted heroics in other rooms prior to the guests arriving on Saturday.

Tidy Towns picnic

I have been out exploring for new walks, too, but was in that search, disappointed. I had gone armed with a very pretty, helpful brochure from the local tourist-y department, ('Lakes and Legends') which told me of a way-marked 'bogland trail' brim full of historic and wildlife interest. A nice country walk, in fact, which would surely see me way off the beaten track, climbing the local hill (Bockagh Hill) where I could get views out across Sligo and could see an historic 'Mass Rock' (a secret religious site dating from when Catholicism was outlawed).

The Young Pretender, "Corporal".

Unimpressed, then, to find that the 'trail' was just a 4.5 km loop of tarmac lanes fenced either side to keep you out of the cattle fields or off the actual bog. A few green arrows on posts led the way but there were no interpretive boards, just one rustic seat to sit on to look at Sligo and a complete absence of signage for the advertised "diversion" to the Mass Rock. To add insult to injury we didn't even get near the summit of Bockagh Hill itself - our tarmac lane skirted by on the lower slopes about half a mile east of the summit. If I want to walk 4.5 kms of tarmac, guys, I can do that just outside the house gate here. I won't be coming back to try the other walks on your brochure.

Rosie, our 'keeper' ewe. She was born this year beautifully
marked in blacks, greys and whites. All that remains of this
now are a few white spots on her face. She's having a good
old chew on her cud in this picture. 

Finally a village event which WAS a pleasant surprise. We were invited (open invitation to the whole village) to a picnic to be held in the central garden area at the village cross roads to celebrate the end of a busy season by the Tidy Towns team. They had asked people to bake a cake or turn up with some food; Liz had baked a gorgeous fruit cake. It was very pleasant - good company including many people we know anyway from the village, a nice sit down, chattering away being plied with good tea and superb cakes and biscuits. There were some children playing or sitting on a duvet cover someone had spread out for a 'picnic blanket'. It was warm and almost windless and the midges mostly stayed away. Very pleasant.

No, it is not a trick of the light. Deefer (top)
really is green from having rolled in the newly
mowed lawn  just before supper. Poppea
(bott) has a few smears while Towser (mid)
is un-accountably clean.

We couldn't stay long there, as Liz had another engagement, a meeting for the upcoming Half-Marathon which pants exhaustedly past our gate in September. Liz got involved with the publicity this year so ended up attending a few evening meetings either at the village centre, or down at the GAA ground. What rock'n'roll lives we do lead?

Gallowglass

One aspect of Irish life which regularly impresses us is the quality of their road-side art and sculpture. The nearby town of Ballaghaderreen is ringed by lovely wicker-work cattle, milk churns, men, huge urns, a big fish as well as various arches and arbours or shapes made out of woven willow. It is all very dramatic and interesting to see as you drive about, but they have now exceeded even all this by commissioning an impressive, 16 feet tall sword-wielding warrior in a bright (chrome?) stainless steel to stand by the west-bound side of the new bypass.

Locals will know that this guy has actually been there a while and is not, technically, still 'news'. He arrived in May this year; it is just that I have never yet got around to nipping over to take his picture. It is not a piece of road we would drive; we come and go from Balla-D rather than whizzing by from west to east.

As seen from the East-bound carriageway. 

He is, in fact, a "Gallowglass" warrior. Says everybody's tame expert, "Wikipedia", "The gallowglasses (also spelt galloglass, gallowglas or galloglas; from Irish: gall óglaigh meaning foreign warriors) were a class of elite mercenary warriors who were principally members of the Norse-Gaelic clans of Scotland between the mid 13th century and late 16th century." If you were an Irish regional king or warlord and you really wanted to win that fight with your neighbour, you would hire these guys to strike fear into your rival's army (and presumably duff them up a bit).

This clematis has decided not to climb my convenient ash
 poles this year, but to scramble instead, through the Lady's Mantle.

I love this piece of sculpture which I imagine cost the town a fair amount. He is on a nice rise in the ground and I keep meaning to pick a nice sunset evening and go get him silhouetted against the colours of the sunset. If you want to see him, next time you are coming in through Frenchpark and you join the by-pass, don't come off at the first exit to Cooney's, Tibohine and Ballaghaderreen, but carry on to the next exit. He is just after that first exit on your left.

This one is going to be for me! Liz completes
this lovely cabling pattern on the front panel
of the latest jumper.

Out on the Sligo house project we progress. Having pretty much finished the house, so we have moved outside back onto the 'hard landscaping'. This is all about making a garden and yard around the dwelling instead of it sitting in the middle of a building site (usual stuff - piles of rubble, stone, scrap wood, old, dead wheel barrows, a big yellow digger, dead cement bags and so on). Some of it is the stone wall building, so K-Dub and I are back remembering the old skills of stone laying, cement mixing and lugging stuff about. This rather handily uses up the piles of stone and avoids us having to double handle it. It's come from the demolished walls of the house and been stacked around the house while the house got itself built. Some of it went back into the house on the new walls and bigger gables but the rest is now being scavenged up for these garden walls. Very efficient.

Branching out from the straight knitting, Liz has now enrolled
onto some crochet lessons. This is the first, ever, test square. 

We both love this stone - Sligo stone is some manner of stratified sandstone which comes out of the ground already in flat slabs and pieces. Most of it is between about 1 and 4 inches thick, so it is like long or broad bricks which means you can lay it in a bond like brickwork. Our stone here in Roscommon is in rounded boulders about the size of your head, so impossible to lay into walls - walls here were always poured between a sandwich of timber shutters as a mix of boulders and concrete or cement. They are thick and strong but nobody would ever call them elegant, neat or beautiful.

Our friends came a-visiting with their huge St Bernard who
rides in state in the back of their capacious 4 x 4. 

Just down the hill from where we are working a proper professional stone mason is doing a gorgeous job with his stones all chipped away to size and perfect fit. His wall will be smooth like the pyramids with tiny thin joints. We are in awe of that skill but we are, even so, well pleased and delighted with our efforts. Neither of us claim to be stone masons and we know we can do this well only as a result of the lovely "pre-prepared" (by nature and by previous wall -builders!) stone we are lucky enough to have lying about the place.

Prada. Beautiful dog. 

There, by happy chance, a whole post about crafts, skills and working with your hands.

Bit of a Thaw

Our part of Kent has a bit of a thaw. We wake up to the drip drip of meltwater everywhere, and great blobby lumps of wet snow falling from trees and bushes. The dodgy bit of guttering above the side-gate of the house dumps a continuous stream of water down the back of the neck of any human or dog foolish enough to tarry while unbolting the gate. Dad had developed a strange contortion whereby he can stand out of range of the stream, double-jointing his right arm into bolt-pulling position while holding 2 dog leads clear of the cold water.

The 6 inch white blanket slides off the bonnet of Clara Bow unbidden, and inspires Dad to fire up the old girl and take her for a dry-out blat. At 60 mph he pats the canvas roof upwards with the palm of his hand, unleashing the roof's 6 inches of snow onto any following traffic. She now sits on the drive with her exhaust pinging as it cools back down, and steam curling gently off her bonnet from the warmth of the engine, but at least you can see she's been driven - snow free top, and tyre marks where she's come and gone.

No word yet from Mum who's attending to a family emergency in Ireland - we hope all's well with the Silverwoods and the Steak Lady and co (plus the rest of the family, who don't generally get covered by this blog, being non-dog folk whom I have never met). Pud Lady reports that Hastings is having similar weather to here but being a hilly town, is getting far less well served by gritters and ploughs.

Up where they live, on the hill by the "Pilot Field" (Hastings Town footie ground) no busses are running, there are still abandoned cars everywhere and only 4x4's are getting about. Just as well Dad's brother T-Fer has just invested in a big silver "Warrior".

Keep safe, dry and warm (and that includes young Mr "M" Silverwood who has urges to rush outside without a coat on and make snow angels)

Deefski