Jul 26 2012

Olympics London 2012

With the Olympics kicking off this weekend I thought I’d share this funny video.

Olympics – Don’t Try This at Home 😀

Jul 24 2012

Irish Bonsai Club – Interested?

Back in November I asked, Does anyone Irish still do Bonsai?

Well, things have moved on and I’m doing my bit to assist with the start up of a Bonsai Club/Study Groups in Ireland.

Adam, from Cork, is determined to get the ball rolling and I’ve offered my personal support and also that of our club The Northern Ireland Bonsai Society.

Adam is currently gathering names and email addresses to assess where the majority of those interested live. The club will then be tailored to fit the make-up of the group. I can see study groups starting in Cork, Dublin and Galway or, at the very least, getting people in contact with each other in these areas. These groups will all be part of the one club organising events, trips workshops etc.

There’s no name yet, there’s no website yet but this will come soon. The question is:

Are You Interested?

If the answer is yes, drop an email to Adam at irishbonsai@gmail.com to register your interest.

This is it folks, now is your chance. It takes someone to step up and you have waited for many years for this to happen. Step up now and get this going. If it doesn’t happen now, how much longer will you have to wait??!!

Jul 20 2012

Sapporo!

Even drinking Japanese Beer!

Jul 18 2012

Through The Keyhole

I thought I would show you part of my body that I normally keep under wraps 🙂

Don’t get too excited. I was with my surgeon yesterday for my first check up since the op and he handed me photos taken by the camera during the keyhole surgery.

He said that red isn’t good, here’s my first two pics!

After removing the inflamed tissue he put this bad boy to work removing some bone. 80,000 rpm. My first thought was, would it work in the makita?!

This is the final one showing a nice gap for my tendon to move around in without any more aggravation.

Jul 10 2012

Back Among my Babies

My good friends Stephen and Vanessa popped down today and as usual Stephen offered to water for me. Good fun checking out the growth in the garden and inspecting some of our recently collected trees. I’ll post a few pics over the next few days. Here is me in among the benches again and even practising my left handed pinching technique 🙂

Stephen hard at work.

Jul 3 2012

Last Minute Work

I spent a little time running around the garden on Sunday trimming trees and weeding. I head off to hospital today for shoulder surgery and I wanted to try and get things done now before I can’t do them for myself. I should have taken more snaps to show what I was working on but I just didn’t have the time. I have some posts lined up to appear while I’m in hospital but I probably won’t be able to reply to emails and posts comments for a while. I hope to be back doing some one arm typing by the end of the week.

Elm cutting all around.

Jun 26 2012

Kalgoorlie Tree

My sister, who lives in Perth, Western Australia, posted this photo on Facebook recently. She was in Kalgoorlie and took this photo of a tree at Lake Ballard. A strange looking place. I guess she knew I’d like the photo 🙂

You can just see where the tree is to the right at the top of the island.

Some strange Sculptures on the salt flats.

Those Irish get everywhere 🙂

Jun 21 2012

Belfast Walls

I’ve been meaning to post a few images of some of the wall murals that are seen here in Northern Ireland and more specifically, in Belfast.

There’s is a lot of history here to do with the ‘Troubles’ and in the past most murals were to do with Paramilitaries on both sides of the conflict.

In recent years we have seen a slow change from this towards messages of peace and greater understanding. Some have been painted over and replaced with historical images relating to the local community.

On my way back from the exhibition on Sunday, I had the camera in the car and I jumped out and look a few quick snaps at the bottom of the Newtownards Road in Belfast. This was, and in some ways still is, an interface area where conflict occurs between both sides.

I thought this was rather inspiring.

You can see the shipyard cranes in the background. This area was were many of the workers came from to work on the Titanic. They have changed another gable wall to remember this feat.

Sadly, we still see the negative from both sides in the form of paramilitary murals. Slowly but surely I hope to see these changing to the far more inspiring ones above. The area has to be commended for the obvious changes taking place. Well done.