Marty

I honestly don't think I could stand that sort of weather. Apparently, they're having a heatwave in England as well. A nephew who lives in Manchester tells me the weather there has been as high as 30°C/86°F and extremely humid. He says it's even hotter in the south of England. I'm just glad Ireland isn't suffering such extremes.

Good evening, young Albert.

And the same to you, bro!

That put me in mind of the following track by The Lovin' Spoonful from way back in 1966: It was one of the tracks on a vinyl LP of theirs that I had at the time (1966). I remember myself and my the best friend at the time getting caught out in a summer downpour one day, and singing it to each other as we sat in a shelter in the park waiting for it to stop raining. A bittersweet memory in a way. I was about to head off to university, and he wasn't. We'd effectively been each other's shadow for around six years, and we both knew the closeness between us would be ending when the summer holiday did. We saw each other occasionally over the next few years, but he unfortunately died in a house fire whilst working in the Middle East in the early 1970s.

I'm happy for you, bro!

Hey, Albert! A beautiful day here, so I'm just in for a "bite" to eat.

Don't mention cucumbers! Clo might get overexcited.

For afters this evening I had peppermint tea with a good dash of Irish whiskey added. I think I may have found a replacement for Irish coffee. (Maybe with not quite so much whiskey the next time... )

But... but... but... Page used the "Love" emoticon and Val used the "Like" one...

For my week 17 19 out of 52 Black & White photo challenge this week I uploaded the photograph I shared with you a number of days back of the first lot of potatoes I harvested... Week 17..... That means I'm almost one third of the way through this challenge. [EDIT] I just realised this was actually my week 19 contribution. I'll blame that mistake on the hot whiskey I had after dinner.

Steamed homegrown potatoes and cabbage with a mushroom omelette for me.

To be blunt, @CassieQ, I think @clochette knew exactly what she was doing when she chose her words there...

Maybe she likes something that has... (how did she put it?) ... "a nice length and is perfectly thick" ... to have a bit of hair on it... A sign of maturity, eh?

No comment.

Sorry, bud. I just couldn't resist.

In which case, I won't mention the fact that you actually did mention them.

Hey, bro! I hope you have a great day, as well, buddy.

Erm, no... (Not outdoors, anyway)

Hi there, young man. Hope all's well in Albertsville.

After my earlier reminiscence about my first ever trip to Ireland, I remembered I had a copy of an old blurry black and white photo my sister still has from the holiday in 1956. It shows my dad and my two siblings, along with Uncle John and his four children, and Uncle Jim and two of my cousins, Michael and Francis, who were actually two of my Uncle Paddy's brood. I don't know why Uncle Paddy didn't go on that holiday himself; and I don't remember ever meeting Uncle Jim, although my mum did once tell me that I had been at his wedding when I was a baby. I think he went to America shortly after his wedding. Uncles Jim and Paddy were another two of dad's brothers. A cousin told me a few years back that dad was the youngest of fourteen children. I think I only ever met four of his siblings. I believe many of them finished up in America, and the same cousin told me that I have first and and second cousins scattered about the USA. I must ask my sister whether she still has the original of that photo, and if it is clearer than the copy she shared with our Siblings WhatsApp Group a while back. That copy looked as though she had photographed the original with her phone, so hopefully the original really is a lot clearer. If she has, I might arrange to scan a higher resolution of it when I hope to travel to England for her 80th birthday celebrations towards the end of October (covid-19 restrictions permitting).

Yea, bro. I knew you were really talking about the kilts. But allow me to have my ginger fantasies.

The Ginger Gene is probably as common amongst the Irish as the Scots. They're both members of the Gaelic branch of the Celtic race.

Thanks for reading and commenting, @Valkyrie. You're right. It sadly is still relevant today. Especially as today marks the 75th anniversary of the bomb being dropped on Hiroshima.

Oddly enough, although I considered myself at least half-Irish (dad was from Ireland) as a child growing up in the north of England, I never actually managed to get to Ireland until 1979 when I was almost 32 years old. There simply hadn't been enough money in the house for distant holidays like that. Most years the best we could hope for was a week in a cramped caravan at the seaside in north Wales. Mind you, dad did take two of my older siblings to Ireland in the summer of 1956. I would have been 8 at the time, but I still felt jealous not to be going with them. Apparently dad's brother (my Uncle John - whom I sadly never met) only had room to accommodate dad and 2 children, as he had 4 kids of his own. Initially it was to have been the 2 oldest who would go, but my oldest brother wasn't keen on the idea for some reason. So dad invited the next in age, my older brother. Had he declined, I would have been next in line. But he accepted, and he and my eldest sister had the holiday of a lifetime (their words - even to this day). Mum and dad split the following year, and I didn't actually see dad again for around 10 years (but that's another story). So my dreams of visiting Ireland were put on the back-burner. Sometime towards the end of 1971 a girlfriend and myself were talking about having a holiday in Ireland the following summer. (Yes, I was 24 years old and still denying my sexuality, even to myself.) I'd written to Bord Fáilte (the then Irish Tourist Board) and they had sent me a large thick envelope with brochures and information about campsites and hostels, and other cheap forms of accommodation. I was even planning to contact dad and get details of where my relatives actually lived, as all I knew was that he was from a farm somewhere outside a certain town in County Roscommon. As 1972 ushered itself in, I was getting more and more excited about the idea of fulfilling my dream. And then, on the 30th of January 1972, British Troops shot 26 unarmed civilians in Derry (aka Londonderry) in Northern Ireland during a protest march against Internment Without Trial, which had been introduced in August 1971. Fourteen civilians were killed by British Soldiers on that day, a day that is still remembered as "Bloody Sunday". Things rapidly went downhill in Northern Ireland as a result. And, even though we had no plans to go anywhere near the North, my girlfriend decided she didn't want to go ahead with the holiday. I was devastated, but had no-one else who wanted to go with me. So I was forced, one again, to shelve my dream of seeing Ireland. Fast forward to 1979, and myself and my then boyfriend (although we never admitted that fact to anyone else) decided to spend two weeks in Ireland, mainly climbing mountains (which was our big passion at the time). We did worry as to whether we might experience any problems over the fact that we had English accents and were driving a car with English registration plates, as "The Troubles" were still raging in the North. But we had none whatsoever. I even visited my relatives, again worrying that they might not make me welcome, due to the fact that my Protestant English mother had divorced their Catholic Irish relative. They welcomed me with open arms, with the first words from my Auntie Maggie (a sister of my dad's) being: "Welcome home!" And the rest, as they say, is history! There's actually a short story of mine here on GA, that is basically an account of that first visit.