Blogging from a Blackberry

This a first blog from a Blackberry phone so need to see if it works. This third attempt so going to publish now.

I have aquired a new Blackberry phone and it has the capability to go on the internet anywhere either directly or via a WiFi hotspot, and thankfully I have 3 of those one at Tory Bush and one at Dundrum Bay Holiday Homes and one at my own home. This means that I should be able to blog more frequently as can do it when ever I have any free time and not just when in the office at Tory Bush.

The first sentence above was uploaded from the Blackberry, I admit it not a significant sentence but then all modern soundrecording from Wax Cylinders through 78's, 45 singles, CD's DVD's and even MP3 players began with the sentence "Mary had a little lamb" , spoken by Edison when he first recorded sound on the 6th of December 1877, so perhaps there is hope for this blog.

Sticking to the point.

I notice from my last blog that I strayed severely from the title of the blog which was to be about the recent snow we have had.  I have therefore taken a policy decision to stay 'on message' and try and keep the blogs about the events at Tory Bush Cottages or things of relevance to visitors to this general area, i.e. the Mournes, County Down or at times Northern Ireland.

On the latter item, Northern Ireland as a destination has a lot going for it,  in 2007 it was rated in a'Lonely Planet' publication, the  "Lonely Planet Blue List, The Best in Travel 2007" as one of the worlds must see destinations.

Not 5 mile from us here at Tory Bush is the Royal County Down Golf Course, rated as one of the top three best Links Courses in the world, Tiger Woods regularly plays the course prior to the British Open.

The Antrim Coast and  Causeway Coastal drive is rated as one of the best Coastal drives in the world not far behind drives such as Prince Edward island in Canada,  the Monterrey coast of California. 

Not bad for such a wee place.

Well back to the snow one of the advantages of the snow is that it lets us see some landscape features not usually visible. It may recalled that in an earlier Blog I mentioned the remnants of the Lazy Beds that are still visible on the higher slopes, this is where, during the famine, people tried to grow potatoes as they assumed that the disease was in the soil, so they moved to land that had never grown potatoes. Little did they know that the disease was in the air, spread by spores from the remains of the stalks of the potato plants from the previous years diseased crop. All they had to do was burn the stalks of the old crops in the Autumn and the disease could not have survived the winter, but then the Science of Plant Pathology did not develop for about 100 years later.

These remnants  of the Lazy Beds have been obliterated on the lower ground by subsequent years of agricultural activity most notably by tractor ploughing, but on the higher slopes inaccessible to machinery they are a 'frozen' memorable to a generation that was almost wiped out by a famine in the mid 1840's.

The photo at the top of the blog is the lines of parallel Lazy Beds running up Slievenaman Hill a hill adjacent to Tory Bush and you can see the lines of the Lazy Beds emphasised by the melting snow. (Literally a frozen memorial)

I am indebted to John McCombe a neighbour and installer of a WiFi system at Tory Bush for this photo. John has his own blog on which he regularly publishes good photos of Mourne, and he and his wife Elaine have their own Tea Room and Craft Shop not far from Tory Bush, well worth a visit if staying in the area.

Let it Snow

It is a while since I last blogged, if that is now a verb, as I am sure it is. It is strange how nouns become verbs, one of my favourites is 'to bin' as in put something in a bin, so if I see some litter on site I may say to someone "bin that please'.or I binned last weeks paper. (using the recycling bin of course)

On the subject of 'bins'  this expression is the cockney  rhyming slang for glasses, as in reading glasses, so if someone is having trouble looking up a number in a telephone book you might say put on your 'bins'.

The logic behind this is a little more tortuous than with most Cockney Slang, usually the rhyme does just that,  it rhymes , so Apples and Pears is the stairs, or Trouble and Strife is wife, though I suspect in the latter there is more than just the alliterative value of the rhyme invoked.

Another word for glasses is spectacles and that rhymes with another word for bin which is receptacle, basically the rhyme should be put on your receptacles but that just not as good as , put on your bins.

Cockney rhyming slang is an evolving 'language', a lot of the older terms were named after famous people of their day so a cigarette or fag was known as a Harry Wragg, a famous jockey in the 1930's. Today the names of present day sports people are used in the slang such as Becks and Posh, ie David Beckham and his wife 'Posh Spice'. 

So when someone says' I can't go out tonight I have no Becks' what they mean is they have no spending money.  Can you work out the link?

Becks and Posh rhymes with dosh and dosh means money, itself a slang term which is now an accepted usage but of very uncertain origin.

Given the present economic situation we are all a bit short of Becks.

One of my favourites is 'Get on your Dick Van Dyke'  i.e. 'get on your bike', which is usually used as an expression to clear off.

Amazingly Dry Weather

It has been dry here in Co Down for the best part of  three weeks, which is highly unusual for this time of year.  A Continental High pressure are has been sitting over the UK for the last while and whilst this means drier weather it also means colder weather and indeed it has been cold for the last week or so. Our daytime temperature should be in the region of 6 to 7 degrees centigrade, but it has struggled to reach 3 to 4 for most days.

The long range forecast is that in about a weeks time the Winds will start to once again come in from the Atlantic bringing back, in relative terms, the milder weather, and with it the rain. Apparently only for these winds bringing this milder air in from the Atlantic which has been heated by the a Current called the North Atlantic Drift - a continuation of the Gulf stream- Ireland would have much colder winters. Northern Ireland is on the same latitude as  Goose Bay in Newfoundland and the average daily temperature at this time of year is an unbelievable Minus 13. This may not be a fair comparision as I am sure Goose Bay suffers from the affect of being part of a large Continental Land Mass and these tend to have bigger seasonal temperature variations, think of the central European Countries like Bulgaria etc.. Islands like Ireland benefit from the buffereing effect of being surrounded by water, but the point is that with out the heating affect of the Atlantic Drift we would be much colder, possibly in a mini-ice age.  

The fear is, and this was not in my mind when I began this blog today, (I simply wanted to give a weather report), that as a consequence of Global Warming and the melting of the Polar Ice Caps there will be an influx of colder water from the North Pole which will push the benefits of the North Atlantic Drift much further south. So ironically as a consequence of Global Warming here in Ireland we may actually move into a mini ice-age. I seem to recall a BBC Northern Ireland Programme on this very topic presented by William Crawley and I do remember him traveling to Newfoundland and 'flying' about on a snow-mobile.

Now I am in a quandry, should I buy a new pair of Thermals or a pair of Bermuda shorts.