A sense of community.

Every year following Christmas in our local hamlet

Party Time Again.

 there is a party, this is held in the local school and was for the old people of the area, this year it was extended to people who have moved in recently to our under populated area. It is nice to see new people moving into the area, especially if they have children. Several people have died in the last year so numbers are dwindling, I noted also just how many single people there were, of both sexes so it is nice to see everyone together have a good time.
The meal was very good,

The willing helpers.

served by three willing helpers, traditional Christmas fare, turkey, ham, stuffing, potatoes swede and carrots, and beautifully cooked cabbage, this had been mixed with leeks and then stirred into a white sauce, I could have easily eaten just a large plate of this and nothing else, I will certainly be trying it at home. All this was followed by trifle, one of my favourite deserts.

Newest member of our community.

We were then entertained by a one man band and our newest neighbour, who it turns out has a great voice. It was a very enjoyable get together.
We seen to have been very busy over the last couple of weeks, making more marmalade and with friends visiting and us visiting friends, one day out found us traveling to Co. Cavan to buy a  new breeding doe rabbit, we often look back at our years when we lived in the neighbouring County of Leitrim and had wondered if our memories about MUD were correct, they most certainly were, as soon as we arrived at this farm the memories came flooding back, mud and more mud. Yes, we do have mud here, but not the type that sticks to everything that it comes into contact with. The problem with the border counties is lack of top soil, maybe five inches of top soil if you're lucky, under this is daub, which is bolder clay so it holds the water for a week at a time, it does drain, as long as it doesn't rain, so it's not much use as a building material, but it is very good for growing trees in.
Hopefully this week will be a little quieter so we can catch up on things that we need to do, but so far this week has not started out that way, maybe we can start the week over tomorrow.

Home made Pizza

I have often wondered why Pizza is classed as junk food after all it's only bread dough with filling, even from a Pizza restaurant the fillings are normally what we would class as healthy food. From time to time I will get the urge to make Pizza, filled with tomatoes, tuna, anchovies, mushrooms and olives, topped with cheese, all brushed with a liberal helping of olive oil, all healthy foods, so why class it as junk, it certainly is not quick to make,  but to us well worth the effort.
After having struggled for over two years with our state owned internet provider, we decided to part company. We were promised a broadband connection of 3 megabytes but seldom achieved anything more than half a megabyte, not even considered broadband. Our new provider aims for up to 4 megabytes but the capacity of the wiring is only about 2.5, even this would be acceptable and so far we are suitably surprised so hopefully they will be as good as their word, our new service provider is also seven euros a month cheaper, as Tesco likes to say, 'Every Little Helps'. The chances of optic fibre at this distance from a large town is unlikely any time soon.

No dignity here.

Finally a picture of Tess who is now a year old, she still has not learnt how to present herself for a photo call in a dignified manner.