Ah the folly...

Bog Cotton

I'm back from the real world for a while! Thought I had found a foolproof system and was making around two hundred pounds a day until I hit a bad patch and lost most of my winnings in an afternoon!
Thankyou Anthony for the invitation to post to your new weblog. I'd be pleased to. Perhaps the best way would be to post a permanent link. I'm not quite offe with the technicalities of all this myself so would welcome any tips.
Been out and about at the Queen's Festival. Watched Nollaig Casey play sublime fiddle at the Elmwood Hall last Sunday accompanied by the ever-dry Arty McGlynn on guitar. Then Sean Keane joined them with singing and whistle playing.
Tonight went on a deliberately solitary foray to Clonard to listen to Rautavaara's music. Nearly fell asleep during some of it and sat bolt upright at other times. Great colour and tones. A woman thanked me for my insights. Probably mad.
Tomorrow I hope to get out and about again - the Ulster Way beckons.

Zen and Life

Knobstone

I'm sitting here on a Friday night. It's 11.25pm here in Belfast. I've spent the last few hours looking at my computer screen. I first watched an episode of Phoenix Nights - a comedy series I like. I love that Northern English sense of humour. I then visited a few web sites. I always look in on littlegreenfootballs. I find it fascinating (and also scary) that there are people like the contributors to this site out there. They mentioned a campaign by the Guardian to affect the voting in an American constituency - towards Kerry. Of course te denizens of lfg are a little to the right of Attilla. However I signed up to the Guardian proposal and will soon send an e-mail to someone in the US to tell them why I think they should vote in a particular way. It will be interesting if I get a real Bush supporter!
Then I listened to a Dharma talk by Paul Haller of the San Francisco Zen Centre. All meditation (indeed life) is a continuous mistake he suggests. I think I agree. Think how many times we beat ourselves up when we try to acheive something we really believe in or think we believe in. I know I always think I'm cocking something up whenever I meditate.
The picture is of a standing stone near to the Ulster Way. It looks over towards Ailsa Craig. Its shape is somewhat phallic (or is it just me?). Ireland is littered with such stones. It's amazing they have stood in the same place for so long without disturbance. This one is fortunate in that its well off the beaten track. There are quite a few sites dedicated to the standing stone.
I'm finishing off a Heinekin beer can. I have to move and sell a piano tomorrow so farewell for now.

From Headless Cross to Black Hill

Liz Through the Looking Wall

Saturday was a Walking Day. Myself and Liz headed up to Headless Cross car park a.k.a. Linford carpark to begin the next stretch of the Ulster Way. The car park overlooks a broad plain and undoubtedly this is what drew a small crowd of model aircraft enthusiasts - men in early to late middle age controlling a variety of buzzing craft.
The weather was clear with a little cloud. We were blessed with fantastic views over the North Channel to Scotland.
We crossed Scawt Hill meeting a man who I strongly suspect was collecting 'magic mushrooms'. He said he was up there to walk and take photos. Why then the wicker basket. I have a very suspicious mind!
We passed a phallic-shaped standing stone which looked over the brow of the hill towards Ailsa Craig. Ailsa is also known as 'Paddy's Milestone' for the returning Irish traveller knew he was close to home when he spotted the island.
Mushrooms of all kinds and colurs littered the ground.
We walked as far as Black Hill before turning back. The days are getting shorter now and we really only had to around 7pm before dark.
We rounded off the day by visiting the Meeting House - a pub on the Brustin Brae (great name!) Road. We were a little reticent about entering the place as we don't know the village (Cairncastle) and sometimes these little pubs can be unwelcoming. Not so with the Meeting House! Inside there was a friendly singing session - traditional songs interspersed with modern rock ballads. There was good food available and nicest of all an old man came over to Liz and I to offer us a seat in the packed bar. It turned out he and his friend were ramblers themselves - the East Antrim Ramblers Club. He it was who told us that Linford was locally known as Headless Cross. He didn't know why it was called so. I can only imagine at one time there was a broken cross at the site. There is a mass rock not too far away. An internet search reveals a lot of references to Black Sabbath! Other places with the same name occur in Worcestershire, Dartmoor, Shotts (Scotland), Bolton and Derby.
My daily routine has changed with the opening of the Zen Centre. I used to wake at 8am, get breakfast, then go to work. Now there is a sitting between 7am and 8am so we try to get down there a few times a week. This means getting up at 6.15am. Oy vey!
Today I also spent two hours doing tai chi. If I don't watch out I'll get enlightened and no-one will hear from me again!
The campaign to stop the M3 ploughing through Tara was aided by a mini-festival there on Sunday. Stuart Townsend has added his support to the growing campaign to halt this madness.

Back to Square One

Lone Tree

Pride comes before a fall.
Lost around £311 today on the horses. Luckily I had slowly built up slightly more than this amount over the past couple of week so I haven't gone into fresh money yet. Makes it all seem a bit pointless though.
I usually bet on a few horses in every race varying the stakes. I also bet on several potential correct score outcomes with the possibility of backing heavily at very short odds if my initial picks are incorrect. What I also included in my plan was that if I ever lost £100 in a session I would lay the favourite in the next race for £100 to make up the loss. Today I was down £71 when I decided to lay Blythe Spirit at odds of about 2.8. I stood to lose £194 if the horse won. Every horse won today at Wolverhampton!
Laying is a bloody dangerous business especially if you get a run of favourites against you. Luckily I didn't chase my losses - the next favourite also won.
I feel gutted about the waste of time involved in building up a bank only to see it disappear in an afternoon.

A Road Too Far

Tess grappling with stick!

We all know Ireland has been undergoing an economic boom for the past decade or so. The Celtic Tiger is now one of the richest statee in the world. A far cry from the 'Banana Republic' Bob Geldoff used to sing about. People are now flocking into Ireland from all over the world. Previously emigration was the byword here.
All this prosperity has come with a price. This new money has to be spent on something - and the thing the Republic has spent it on is roads. Wide laned motorways now span the country. Everywhere has to have a bypass. The God Car has to be appeased. With poverty so recently in the background there is little opposition to the tarmacing of our country. Hey we might lose our economic prosperity if we don't keep building and becoming more and more competitive.
The latest scheme though has disturbed more than a few people. It is a plan to build a motorway through perhaps the most sacred and revered site in Ireland - Tara.
Tara is where the ancient kings of Ireland used to meet, it is where St Patrick converted multitudes to Christianity, its where a famous battle against the British took place in 1798. Archaeologists have located scores of valuable historical sites lying in the path of the motorway.
And why do we need this motorway? Well, to get more cars into already congested Dublin.
Instead of building a rail corridor to take people out of their cars the government wants to speed them along into the city and to hell with our heritage and our fresh air.
There is a legal challenge to this madness and there will be onsite opposition. I'll keep you posted.

First Friday

Moss and lichen

How important is friendship to you? Who are your friends? Can you make real friends after the age of 25?
I know that the only people I really feel at one with are people I grew up with. They are people I went to school with or people I went to college with. They seem to know me in a way no-one else can know me. I try to make friends with others but it seems false.
I went last night to the Inter-faith Forum. this is an organisation bringing together people of different faiths and none to hear about other faiths and beliefs. Last night they had a woman from the Christian Scientists. They seem to believe that if we realise that we are divine all illnesses or errors can be healed. Indeed they say that you cannot progress in their faith unless you heal other people. We listened last night to a woman who had been searchig all her life for an answer. She believes she has found it through the works of Mary Baker Eddy. I have yet to read the book given out freely last night.
She sounds like a 'scarf woman' - the term I give to post- menopausal woman who believe in fairies etc.
However there is something that resonates. Intelligence, I believe is 'divine'. Maybe intelligence is a loaded word - perhaps I mean 'self-consciousness'. This is something we share with all other humans. It is something special. Something which maybe ultimately seperate from the physical.
Today I listened to Dr Ian Paisley - the elder. He appeared at a 'Celebration of Age'
Like the rest of the panel - Sam McAughtry, May Blood, PJ McClean etc he was humourous and moving. He signed a copy of his book 'Grow Old with Me' for me.
Tonight - the first Friday of the month used to be a time I would go out with some old friends to a bar. We would talk, argue and drink. We haven't done this for some time. Tonight I went down alone to the John Hewitt Bar and watched curly headed women flirt with an open chested long-haired blonde guy - then watched the latter drink sadly alone. I listened to the Panama Jazz Band and thought of what I should be challenging myself to do. Set up an IVS workcamp and dive.
I'll leave you with the sub-text [takes a bit of time to load]to the coalition war effort in Iraq ( and yes I do feel for Tony with his heart complaint!)