Fiacre Banks

@xFiacre (14350)

Ireland

Joined myLot 10 years ago

An Irishman who has called many places home, enjoys whiskey in moderation and reads Dostoyevsky frequently.

Fiacre Banks's Discussions

Oh the poor library.

Fiacre Banks @xFiacre (14350) • Ireland 12h

People are actively encouraged to come into our (MY) local library not to read but to CHAT. Did you ever? And in they come of course, looking for friendship and conversation, and the opportunity to make noise. People arrange to...

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4 people

This sweet, wet rain.

Fiacre Banks @xFiacre (14350) • Ireland 16 Sep

I’m not obsessed with the weather - it is what it is - but I will record the deep satisfaction I feel right now as I lie in bed listening to rain beating against the open window, hissing through trees and gurgling down drains....

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6 people

Anybody want to be Joan Collins?

Fiacre Banks @xFiacre (14350) • Ireland 16 Sep

Do you ever just get frustrated with yourself and wish you weren’t you? I’m having one of those moments when I wish I wasn’t me. It’s not that I want to be someone else because when I go down that slippery path I can’t identify...

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6 people

We are sailing.

Fiacre Banks @xFiacre (14350) • Ireland 12 Sep

Late last night I pressed the “book now” button and sealed my fate - I’m definitely going to Scotland to stay 5 nights in my brother’s cabin on the west coast. The boat is expensive (but with free coffee!!!) and I could have flown...

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6 people

Wrong wedding.

Fiacre Banks @xFiacre (14350) • Ireland 11 Sep

The BBC tells me, and so it must be true, of a mystery man who appears in the wedding photographs of a Scottish couple, and who has at last been identified four years after the wedding. Neither bride nor groom recognised the...

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6 people

Autumn cure.

Fiacre Banks @xFiacre (14350) • Ireland 11 Sep

It’s decidedly autumnal in my little corner of Ireland today, though summer’s not yet quite defeated. A day of rain, wind and falling leaves like this calls for stewed apples and I can hear a chorus of approval from @traceyjayne...

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6 people

I just don’t understand some people.

Fiacre Banks @xFiacre (14350) • Ireland 9 Sep

The car’s in for a service today so I’m on foot and all the better for it. So much more to notice when one is on foot walking through town. I’ve parked myself in a cafe that actually does a cappuccino that is recognisable as such...

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6 people

Lava Tree irritation.

Fiacre Banks @xFiacre (14350) • Ireland 7 Sep

My wife picked up an irritating new habit on our trip to the County of Cork, and it’s okay for me to say that because she finds it irritating too. When we were out and about she felt that she had to use every public convenience...

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5 people

With or without mushy peas?

Fiacre Banks @xFiacre (14350) • Ireland 5 Sep

We ate at the Leap Inn again tonight and I got confused. The waitress told me that on the menu was fish and chips with mushy peas or I could have the fish and chips special. I asked what the special was, and it was fish and chips...

7 responses •

7 people

Free lunch.

Fiacre Banks @xFiacre (14350) • Ireland 4 Sep

What a powerful welcome we enjoyed today at the home of my wife’s cousin who we met at Church last Sunday down here in West Cork. We hadn’t intended contacting anyone because it’s been 44 years since my wife has met any of them...

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7 people

Gifts.

Fiacre Banks @xFiacre (14350) • Ireland 4 Sep

We exchanged small tokens of affection this week, my wife and I, to mark our wedding anniversary. She got more than I got because it’s also her birthday. I received two French detective novels from a series by Jean Luc Bannalec,...

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8 people

Today’s treats.

Fiacre Banks @xFiacre (14350) • Ireland 3 Sep

Today’s treat was to lallygag the length of a long beach down by Rath an Bharraigh, also known as Castlefreke. The sun shone and the breakers rolled and the sand seemed to run on forever. It’s an isolated spot and terribly...

4 responses •

5 people

Busy day enjoying myself.

Fiacre Banks @xFiacre (14350) • Ireland 2 Sep

This afternoon I was positioned more southerly than anyone else in Ireland, or so they say. We drove down to Mizen Head in County Cork and it is truly a spectacular part of the country. The air was warm and the sea placid, and the...

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10 people

The cows of West Cork

Fiacre Banks @xFiacre (14350) • Ireland 1 Sep

West Cork is a new part of Ireland for me and I’m loving it. Small, well-kept towns along the coast, well beyond the influence of Dublin and its grasping ways. A much milder climate than what I’m accustomed to up on the north-east...

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7 people

Who gets to name towns?

Fiacre Banks @xFiacre (14350) • Ireland 1 Sep

Bweeng- the name of a village that we drove through yesterday that made us smirk. Who in their right mind calls their village Bweeng? Sounds ridiculous till you realise that the original Irish name was Na Boinn which means The...

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9 people

Feeling good.

Fiacre Banks @xFiacre (14350) • Ireland 1 Sep

There’s a fine rain falling from a cloudless, apricot sky this morning as I emerge from my slumbers to wish my wife a happy forty first wedding anniversary. A somewhat callithumpian choir of crowing cocks greeted us with their...

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4 people

Small world.

Fiacre Banks @xFiacre (14350) • Ireland 31 Aug

The rain and the wind were fierce this morning but it didn’t stop us from worshipping at the small Church in which my wife’s parents were wed in 1954 down here in the good County of Cork. First time we’ve been there and out of the...

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4 people

Flies Graveyard.

Fiacre Banks @xFiacre (14350) • Ireland 31 Aug

Do you like to eat sweet pastries even though they may be bad for you, and their name makes them sound unfit for human confection? Pictured above is a Flies Graveyard, more delicately referenced as a current square, frequently...

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14 people

Cute cottage.

Fiacre Banks @xFiacre (14350) • Ireland 30 Aug

Here I sit in my rented cottage. The owner, after giving me a bewilderment of directions, sent me the post (zip) code but said not to use it because it would take me to someone else’s house. So I followed my nose and got here, so...

8 responses •

8 people

The Italians have a phrase for it.

Fiacre Banks @xFiacre (14350) • Ireland 28 Aug

At 1.30 this morning I was suddenly wakened but by what I do not know: I suspect it was a dream rather than a loud bang and I haven’t been asleep since. It’s now 1.30 in the afternoon. I do dislike this kind of disruption and...

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6 people