Fiacre Banks

@xFiacre (15139)

Ireland

Joined myLot 11 years ago

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

Discussions (150)

Fiacre Banks's Discussions

Solo trips.

Fiacre Banks @xFiacre (15139) • Ireland 9 Aug

I booked flights last night but only for my wife. I shall remain at home. She’s going to stay with our English daughter, something we cannot do when we travel as a family ensemble because our daughter’s house isn’t big enough. But...

5 responses •

5 people

White Lotus and bare bottoms.

Fiacre Banks @xFiacre (15139) • Ireland 6 Aug

I’ve been watching White Lotus. It’s a few years old now but I’ve just discovered it. Maybe some of you have seen it; I know @looeyville has. I’m in season two which is set in Sicily. The characters are horrible people with few...

8 responses •

7 people

S-T-R-E-T-C-H

Fiacre Banks @xFiacre (15139) • Ireland 6 Aug

It’s only 10.30 am and I’ve accomplished quite a lot so far, and one of those tasks has been my new stretching routine. I’ve always prided myself in my ability to dress (myself) without sitting down or holding on to something. I...

7 responses •

7 people

Crazies on the loose again.

Fiacre Banks @xFiacre (15139) • Ireland 5 Aug

An awfulness descended upon the streets of London this afternoon. A woman stabbed four men, randomly it seems. Police are suggesting that she had mental problems (you think?) rather than it being a terrorist attack which in my...

7 responses •

7 people

My new throne.

Fiacre Banks @xFiacre (15139) • Ireland 4 Aug

For a while now I’ve been looking for just the right chair for a space in my library (back bedroom that we use as a sitting room in which we like to read). I’d forgotten about my quest until I spotted this lovely little chair in...

7 responses •

9 people

Chimbuzi.

Fiacre Banks @xFiacre (15139) • Ireland 4 Aug

I grew up referring to the smallest room in the house as the chimbuzi, and no without good cause. At that time I lived in 1960s rural Malawi among people who spoke Tumbuku, so why would I use the English word? Generally at home it...

4 responses •

5 people

Alone again, naturally.

Fiacre Banks @xFiacre (15139) • Ireland 3 Aug

Pictured above is the lone heron I often see on my early morning walk along the shore. They are such elegant creatures - nimble, solitary and melancholic, a bit like myself I’m told. In spite of the prevailing great European...

3 responses •

4 people

That hurt.

Fiacre Banks @xFiacre (15139) • Ireland 31 Jul

I've never paid any attention to Tai Chi (or chai tea as a friend inadvertently referred to it once in company) until last night: not because of any opposition but because it never interested me. I've seen people practising it in...

3 responses •

3 people

Day trip.

Fiacre Banks @xFiacre (15139) • Ireland 29 Jul

So today we sallied forth by train to the big smoke to go to see a film in a cinema. I dislike cinemas with their smells, overpriced drinks and weird characters lurking about. This one I go to is a private art house cinema and the...

5 responses •

7 people

1977 - the year of the big flushes.

Fiacre Banks @xFiacre (15139) • Ireland 27 Jul

The toilet’s first flush of the day echoed along the empty, moonlit hallways of the monastery just before dawn. The ancient pipes knocked and rattled before the emptied cistern started to refill with a painfully slow trickle of...

4 responses •

6 people

All good gifts around us.

Fiacre Banks @xFiacre (15139) • Ireland 26 Jul

This afternoon Ireland’s fields and roof tops are being revived by soft refreshing rain after so many weeks of heat and drought. The flowers in everyone’s garden are perking up nicely and birds are bathing in the puddles...

6 responses •

7 people

Ferries

Fiacre Banks @xFiacre (15139) • Ireland 25 Jul

The question asked here a few hours ago by @looeyville regarding ferries got me to remembering the ferry rides I’ve taken in my life. Ireland to Scotland and England England to France and Belgium Athens to numerous Greek...

5 responses •

6 people

Such fun had I.

Fiacre Banks @xFiacre (15139) • Ireland 24 Jul

I’ve just serenaded a young lady from South Africa and she was not pleased. She called me asking all manner of impertinences regarding my car finance (which I’ve never had). She was obviously new to the job and stuck nervously to...

5 responses •

6 people

Family secrets.

Fiacre Banks @xFiacre (15139) • Ireland 23 Jul

There was always something mysterious, something unspoken about my father’s family. His parents were already old when I was born and I remember my grandmother as a small, stooped woman sitting by the fireside, almost blind,...

5 responses •

5 people

Close call.

Fiacre Banks @xFiacre (15139) • Ireland 23 Jul

It’s service day for my car. I left it at the mechanic’s at 8.30 and they’ll call me “later” and we all know what that means. My wife will pick me up at 10.30 so I wondered into town to await her good pleasure. I took my place...

4 responses •

5 people

Sore, exercised legs.

Fiacre Banks @xFiacre (15139) • Ireland 22 Jul

I went wandering today through fields along the coast and down onto the rocks to get soaked in sea spray when the big waves rolled in all on top of each other and great was the crash thereof. Just me on my own. The sun shone and...

6 responses •

6 people

Pretty facilities.

Fiacre Banks @xFiacre (15139) • Ireland 17 Jul

Isn’t this just the perkiest decor for a restaurant toilet you’ve ever seen? Sadly the restaurant didn’t deliver quite so perkily with the quality of its food. It’s a Lebanese place in the north an England. Lebanese food is...

5 responses •

7 people

Careless poopers.

Fiacre Banks @xFiacre (15139) • Ireland 15 Jul

The plane I’m waiting to get on to get out of Manchester is stuck in Geneva and instead of leaving at 20.20 hours we have to wait till 22.06 and it’s a blooming nuisance. Thankfully Manchester airport has recently had a makeover...

7 responses •

10 people

Wee buns.

Fiacre Banks @xFiacre (15139) • Ireland 14 Jul

Last night we noticed a new cake shop that has just opened beside the Indian restaurant of great excellence where we dined in tasty style. We were of course laden to capacity at the time and unable to contemplate adding to the...

3 responses •

4 people

The British Queue - I saw one today in Manchester.

Fiacre Banks @xFiacre (15139) • Ireland 11 Jul

For some odd reason, while I wasn’t paying attention, it was decided that today we would go to my granddaughter’s school summer fair - right up my alley. It was boiling hot with nowhere to shelter from the blazing son. Mothers...

7 responses •

8 people