Until last night, I was a Raclette Virgin. My friends around the supper table wouldn’t believe it….couldn’t believe it. To have lived in the Haute Savoie for over a decade and never done Raclette……”NEVER”? they quizzed, dumbfounded “Never EVER?” It … Continue reading →

We live at 480 metres. At 9 pm on January 13th it was -1.5C outside. We have some electric underfloor heating downstairs, but no central heating upstairs or in the house generally.  Today, we did not light our wood-burning stove … Continue reading →

  Today a French TV war correspondent died in a grenade attack while working on a story in an area near the city of Homs in Syria.  Gilles Jacquier of France 2 Television was one of a reported 10 people killed … Continue reading →

  In the past decade, Ireland was on the Pig’s Back. For the previous century and a half there had been a constant flow of emigration. Then with the new millennium came the Celtic Tiger economy. From all over the … Continue reading →

There are several reasons for my posting yesterday’s blog “Last Week I found a Button on a Beach”:   Instant gratification. With new technology there are so many distractions and different forms of immediate communication that life has become a … Continue reading →

  Last week, in the grey dying days of the year, I found a button on the beach at Lislee in West Cork, latitude 51.615458 N,  8.701859 W.   In the million million grains of sand, amidst the waxy fronds … Continue reading →