Thought for today:
No booksellers, no books
No books, no learning
No learning, no knowledge
No knowledge, no wisdom
No wisdom, no ethics
No ethics, no conscience
No conscience, no community
No community, no bread
The Talmud
Sinead and Richie are on holiday and looking for interesting escapades. We found the above little saying when searching for a specific craft bread maker in the Bristol area of England. This isn't the baker we were looking for but we will pop in and buy some of his bread and report back on it. Their website: http://www.marksbread.co.uk/
Check previous blogs for island information.
05 November, 2010
Thought for Today:
We are taking a short break and have friends looking after the hostel for us, so the blog is resting too.
Ferries:
Ferries have been reduced over the last few days due to rough sea conditions.
We recommend checking the ferry web site if you are travelling any great distance, click the link: Cape Clear Island Ferries.com
This blog is maintained by Cape Clear Island
Sea Condition:
Tides:
Click the link for tide times in October: Tide Tables
The above are the tide tables for Cobh .
Simply add 15 minutes to each of the times and you will be close enough for Cape Clear
Wet / Dry / Windy /Sunny / Overcast / Temperature :
Night Sky:
Richie's Blogs - Happenings on Cape Clear:
Click here: Daily News
Click here: Moths & Butterflies
Click here: Birds
Click here: Whales & Dolphins
Chickens x 5, Maggie; Oraiste; Teapot; Billybob; Ginger:
Marie & Jim are looking after the chicken's for a while.
Sinead's Blogs:
Soon, honest.
Fishing on Cape Clear:
Books I am reading:
See previous blogs
My Favourite Poems:
31 October, 2010
Thought for Today:
The cold and damp brings sore joints. But forget the quick fix. Instead, consider giving up potatoes, tomatoes, and apples - it works for me. Avoid being sucked in to the 'need' for stronger and ever stronger drugs. Be your own physician and heal thyself. This is not as silly as it sounds and I urge you to consider that we all have the cure to many (certainly not all) illnesses within our grasp, for example; we can exercise our eyes to strengthen the eye muscles, which will improve our eyesight, but we don't. We can do yoga and other exercises to make us more supple and allow us to put our socks on, but we don't. We are always looking for the quick fix, which inevitably creates an imbalance in our bodily functions and leaves us looking for the next quick fix to fix the imbalance of the previous quick fix. Listen to your body, notice your reaction to each of the foods you eat, notice how you feel after a little exercise. Stop living in an instinctive fog and take charge of yourself.
Ferries:
All as Normal Today
We recommend checking the ferry web site if you are travelling any great distance, click the link: Cape Clear Island Ferries.com
This blog is maintained by Cape Clear Island
Sea Condition:
Not too bad
Tides:
Click the link for tide times in October: Tide Tables
The above are the tide tables for Cobh .
Simply add 15 minutes to each of the times and you will be close enough for Cape Clear
Wet / Dry / Windy /Sunny / Overcast / Temperature :
Raining overnight and all morning but should clear for the afternoon. A slight breeze. Overcast. Quite mild.
Night Sky:
Overcast.
Richie's Blogs - Happenings on Cape Clear:
Click here: Daily News
Click here: Moths & Butterflies
Click here: Birds
Click here: Whales & Dolphins
Chickens x 5, Maggie; Oraiste; Teapot; Billybob; Ginger:
eggs: 5
Having problems with pigeons and hooded crows eating the chicken feed. So moved the container into an enclose run. Fitted a small beaded curtain to the little opening but the chickens wouldn't go through. Have to keep training them to make the new system work.
Sinead's Blogs:
Soon
Fishing on Cape Clear:
Calm enough to fish from the rocks
Books I am reading:
See previous blogs
My Favourite Poems:
Inchcape Rock
No stir in the air, no stir in the sea,
The Ship was still as she could be;
Her sails from heaven received no motion,
Her keel was steady in the ocean.
Without either sign or sound of their shock,
The waves flow’d over the Inchcape Rock;
So little they rose, so little they fell,
They did not move the Inchcape Bell.
The Abbot of Aberbrothok
Had placed that bell on the Inchcape Rock;
On a buoy in the storm it floated and swung,
And over the waves its warning rung.
When the Rock was hid by the surge’s swell,
The Mariners heard the warning Bell;
And then they knew the perilous Rock,
And blest the Abbot of Aberbrothok
The Sun in the heaven was shining gay,
All things were joyful on that day;
The sea-birds scream’d as they wheel’d round,
And there was joyaunce in their sound.
The buoy of the Inchcpe Bell was seen
A darker speck on the ocean green;
Sir Ralph the Rover walk’d his deck,
And fix’d his eye on the darker speck.
He felt the cheering power of spring,
It made him whistle, it made him sing;
His heart was mirthful to excess,
But the Rover’s mirth was wickedness.
His eye was on the Inchcape Float;
Quoth he, “My men, put out the boat,
And row me to the Inchcape Rock,
And I’ll plague the Abbot of Aberbrothok.”
The boat is lower’d, the boatmen row,
And to the Inchcape Rock they go;
Sir Ralph bent over from the boat,
And he cut the bell from the Inchcape Float.
Down sank the Bell
The bubbles rose and burst around;
Quoth Sir Ralph, “The next who comes to the Rock,
Won’t bless the Abbot of Aberbrothok.”
Sir ralph the Rover sail’d away,
He scour’d the seas for many a day;
And now grown rich with plunder’d store,
He steers his course for Scotland
So thick a haze o’erspreads the sky,
They cannot see the sun on high;
The wind hath blown a gale all day,
At evening it hath died away.
On the deck the Rover takes his stand,
So dark it is they see no land.
Quoth Sir Ralph, “It will be lighter soon,
For there is the dawn of the rising Moon.”
“Canst hear,” said one, “the breakers roar?
For methinks we should be near the shore.”
“Now, where we are I cannot tell,
But I wish we could hear the Inchcape Bell.”
They hear no sound, the swell is strong,
Though the wind hath fallen they drift along;
Till the vessel strikes with a shivering shock,
“Oh Christ! It is the Inchcape Rock!”
Sir Ralph the Rover tore his hair,
He curst himself in his despair;
The waves rush in on every side,
The ship is sinking beneath the tide.
But even is his dying fear,
One dreadful sound could the Rover hear;
A sound as if with the Inchcape Bell,
The Devil below was ringing his knell.
Robert Southey
A Bristol Poet
30 October, 2010
Thought for Today:
If you had an unlimited number of typewriters and an unlimited number of chickens you would need an unlimited amount of Tipp-ex, have more poop than you could cope with, and be desperate for the technological age.
Ferries:
All as Normal Today
We recommend checking the ferry web site if you are travelling any great distance, click the link: Cape Clear Island Ferries.com
This blog is maintained by Cape Clear Island
Sea Condition:
A little rough but manageable.
Tides:
Click the link for tide times in October: Tide Tables
The above are the tide tables for Cobh .
Simply add 15 minutes to each of the times and you will be close enough for Cape Clear
Wet / Dry / Windy /Sunny / Overcast / Temperature :
Dry all day; A very small wind; Very warm; Overcast with sunny patches - a nice day for working in the garden.
Night Sky:
Clear and Jupiter is still very bright.
Richie's Blogs - Happenings on Cape Clear:
Click here: Daily News
Click here: Moths & Butterflies
Click here: Birds
Click here: Whales & Dolphins
Chickens x 5, Maggie; Oraiste; Teapot; Billybob; Ginger:
Eggs: 4
Sinead's Blogs:
Someday soon.
Fishing on Cape Clear:
Apparently Brian caught a Bass from the pier.
Books I am reading:
See previous blogs
My Favourite Poems:
The Shooting of Dan McGrew
A bunch of the boys were whooping it up in the Malamute saloon;
The kid that handles the music-box was hitting a jag-time tune;
Back of the bar, in a solo game, sat Dangerous Dan McGrew,
And watching his luck was his light-o'-love, the lady that's known as Lou.
When out of the night, which was fifty below, and into the din and the glare,
There stumbled a miner fresh from the creeks, dog-dirty, and loaded for bear.
He looked like a man with a foot in the grave and scarcely the strength of a louse,
Yet he tilted a poke of dust on the bar, and he called for drinks for the house.
There was none could place the stranger's face, though we searched ourselves for a clue;
But we drank his health, and the last to drink was Dangerous Dan McGrew.
There's men that somehow just grip your eyes, and hold them hard like a spell;
And such was he, and he looked to me like a man who had lived in hell;
With a face most hair, and the dreary stare of a dog whose day is done,
As he watered the green stuff in his glass, and the drops fell one by one.
Then I got to figgering who he was, and wondering what he'd do,
And I turned my head -- and there watching him was the lady that's known as Lou.
His eyes went rubbering round the room, and he seemed in a kind of daze,
Till at last that old piano fell in the way of his wandering gaze.
The rag-time kid was having a drink; there was no one else on the stool,
So the stranger stumbles across the room, and flops down there like a fool.
In a buckskin shirt that was glazed with dirt he sat, and I saw him sway;
Then he clutched the keys with his talon hands -- my God! but that man could play.
Were you ever out in the Great Alone, when the moon was awful clear,
And the icy mountains hemmed you in with a silence you most could HEAR;
With only the howl of a timber wolf, and you camped there in the cold,
A half-dead thing in a stark, dead world, clean mad for the muck called gold;
While high overhead, green, yellow and red, the North Lights swept in bars? --
Then you've a haunch what the music meant . . . hunger and night and the stars.
And hunger not of the belly kind, that's banished with bacon and beans,
But the gnawing hunger of lonely men for a home and all that it means;
For a fireside far from the cares that are, four walls and a roof above;
But oh! so cramful of cosy joy, and crowned with a woman's love --
A woman dearer than all the world, and true as Heaven is true --
(God! how ghastly she looks through her rouge, -- the lady that's known as Lou.)
Then on a sudden the music changed, so soft that you scarce could hear;
But you felt that your life had been looted clean of all that it once held dear;
That someone had stolen the woman you loved; that her love was a devil's lie;
That your guts were gone, and the best for you was to crawl away and die.
'Twas the crowning cry of a heart's despair, and it thrilled you through and through --
"I guess I'll make it a spread misere," said Dangerous Dan McGrew.
The music almost died away . . . then it burst like a pent-up flood;
And it seemed to say, "Repay, repay," and my eyes were blind with blood.
The thought came back of an ancient wrong, and it stung like a frozen lash,
And the lust awoke to kill, to kill . . . then the music stopped with a crash,
And the stranger turned, and his eyes they burned in a most peculiar way;
In a buckskin shirt that was glazed with dirt he sat, and I saw him sway;
Then his lips went in in a kind of grin, and he spoke, and his voice was calm,
And "Boys," says he, "you don't know me, and none of you care a damn;
But I want to state, and my words are straight, and I'll bet my poke they're true,
That one of you is a hound of hell . . . and that one is Dan McGrew."
Then I ducked my head, and the lights went out, and two guns blazed in the dark,
And a woman screamed, and the lights went up, and two men lay stiff and stark.
Pitched on his head, and pumped full of lead, was Dangerous Dan McGrew,
While the man from the creeks lay clutched to the breast of the lady that's known as Lou.
These are the simple facts of the case, and I guess I ought to know.
They say that the stranger was crazed with "hooch", and I'm not denying it's so.
I'm not so wise as the lawyer guys, but strictly between us two --
The woman that kissed him and -- pinched his poke -- was the lady that's known as Lou.
29 October, 2010
Thought for Today:
Stand back and admire your work as it is only the pleasure in the moment which will encourage you to do more.
Ferries:
All as Normal Today
We recommend checking the ferry web site if you are travelling any great distance, click the link: Cape Clear Island Ferries.com
This blog is maintained by Cape Clear Island
Sea Condition:
Calmish.
Tides:
Click the link for tide times in October: Tide Tables
The above are the tide tables for Cobh .
Simply add 15 minutes to each of the times and you will be close enough for Cape Clear
Wet / Dry / Windy /Sunny / Overcast / Temperature :
Wet start at 7pm. Should be dry later. Still a little windy. Overcast. Still quite mild.
Night Sky:
Clear at times but generally overcast
Richie's Blogs - Happenings on Cape Clear:
Click here: Daily News
Click here: Moths & Butterflies
Click here: Birds
Click here: Whales & Dolphins
Chickens x 5, Maggie; Oraiste; Teapot; Billybob; Ginger:
The annual moult is growing and there are feathers everywhere.
3 eggs
Sinead's Blogs:
Not long to go
Fishing on Cape Clear:
Might be worth a try later if the wind dies down
Books I am reading:
See earlier blogs
My Favourite Poems:
The Men That Don’t Fit In
There's a race of men that don't fit in,
A race that can't stay still;
So they break the hearts of kith and kin,
And they roam the world at will.
They range the field and they rove the flood,
And they climb the mountain's crest;
Theirs is the curse of the gypsy blood,
And they don't know how to rest.
If they just went straight they might go far;
They are strong and brave and true;
But they're always tired of the things that are,
And they want the strange and new.
They say: "Could I find my proper groove,
What a deep mark I would make!"
So they chop and change, and each fresh move
Is only a fresh mistake.
And each forgets, as he strips and runs
With a brilliant, fitful pace,
It's the steady, quiet, plodding ones
Who win in the lifelong race.
And each forgets that his youth has fled,
Forgets that his prime is past,
Till he stands one day, with a hope that's dead,
In the glare of the truth at last.
He has failed, he has failed; he has missed his chance;
He has just done things by half.
Life's been a jolly good joke on him,
And now is the time to laugh.
Ha, ha! He is one of the Legion Lost;
He was never meant to win;
He's a rolling stone, and it's bred in the bone;
He's a man who won't fit in.
Robert Service
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