Fiacre Banks

@xFiacre (13515)

Ireland

Joined myLot 10 years ago

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

Discussions (155)

Fiacre Banks's Discussions

Daisy, Daisy.

Fiacre Banks @xFiacre (13515) • Ireland 29 Apr

Meet Oscar, one of the plants living in a little terracotta pot and adorning my deck. He’s an osteospermum but prefers the nickname African Daisy, and has a sister in another part of the garden who has orange flowers. I really...

4 responses •

6 people

You plant pansies and you get potatoes.

Fiacre Banks @xFiacre (13515) • Ireland 29 Apr

The photo above depicts the reason for my current pondering. Among my yellow pansies blooming away merrily in a tub and annoying nobody, a potato plant has sprouted. This can happen if you don’t lift all the previous year’s crop...

5 responses •

5 people

Days of impecunity.

Fiacre Banks @xFiacre (13515) • Ireland 28 Apr

Doesn’t it feel so good to be able to climb into bed at the end of a hard day, into a warm, comfortable, safe bed with clean sheets? The windows are fully glazed and there is no chance of rats, snakes or ne’er-do-wells creeping up...

5 responses •

7 people

Sunday morning.

Fiacre Banks @xFiacre (13515) • Ireland 27 Apr

It’s a warm morning down by the shore. The ferry from Scotland has just slipped into the harbour, its engines humming beneath the water, gulls wheeling and squealing in its wake. Soon a convoy of cars and trucks will spew out of...

3 responses •

4 people

Egyptian cotton memory.

Fiacre Banks @xFiacre (13515) • Ireland 26 Apr

A chance reference to Egyptian cotton on TV tonight sent me on a trip back in time and conjured a life lived a long time ago. In 1969 an American friend from Greenville Ohio gave my mother a stole made of Egyptian cotton. He’d...

3 responses •

7 people

Sunshine, blossom and wine.

Fiacre Banks @xFiacre (13515) • Ireland 24 Apr

The back garden was a glory of warm pink this afternoon. The sun shone and the wind made the cherry blossom fall onto the grass. I sat a goodly while in the sunshine, fortified yet laid languid by a glass(es) of the noble grape. I...

4 responses •

7 people

Issues upon issues.

Fiacre Banks @xFiacre (13515) • Ireland 23 Apr

The positive way of looking at our boiler/furnace issues is that the weather is heating up, and heat is not urgently required. The negative way is to focus on the expense of buying a new one and having it installed. The previous...

5 responses •

7 people

Back to France - what a drag!

Fiacre Banks @xFiacre (13515) • Ireland 17 Apr

Yes, I’m off on the trot again and it wasn’t planned. Hot on the heels of my May sojourn in Athens I feel the need to visit my brother - he’s just moved permanently into a care home due to the limitations brought on by Parkinson’s...

6 responses •

7 people

What is a woman?

Fiacre Banks @xFiacre (13515) • Ireland 16 Apr

Whoever thought it would come to this? Among all the silliness that people visit upon us, today a British Court ruled on the definition of what a woman is. Now I’ve known for quite some time what a woman is, but nobody ever pays...

8 responses •

10 people

Irish rain.

Fiacre Banks @xFiacre (13515) • Ireland 14 Apr

My garden looks like it’s smiling in at me as I watch it from the kitchen window. That’s because just after lunch time it saw rain for the first time in over 2 weeks. And it wasn’t just a warm spot of rain, it was a prolonged...

8 responses •

9 people

Lavatree blues.

Fiacre Banks @xFiacre (13515) • Ireland 13 Apr

The bubble monkeys were at their nonsense again tonight. They mixed some of grandma’s special recipe with my coffee and I woke up later with these poetic thoughts firmly etched on my brain. Read them with a slow lilt if you dare,...

4 responses •

6 people

Spare a thought for sea creatures.

Fiacre Banks @xFiacre (13515) • Ireland 11 Apr

I sat in the sunshine up at Skernaghan Point this afternoon, well away from the frivolity of the beach where pasty white bodies were all turning crimson. There were sheep in the paddock, loads of them, all bleating. One enormous...

4 responses •

8 people

Greece - good or not good?

Fiacre Banks @xFiacre (13515) • Ireland 9 Apr

The Aer Lingus app tells me that I’ll be landing in Athens in 26 days, as will my wife and daughter. A taxi will whip us away to Piraeus where we hope to overnight at a port side hotel with a roof top bar, and next day a flying...

5 responses •

6 people

Nooky on the decking.

Fiacre Banks @xFiacre (13515) • Ireland 9 Apr

I can’t think of much that betters rising with the late spring sun and pottering about the dew-wet garden, noting what seeds have sprouted overnight and setting out breakfast for the birds. And aren’t birds so admirable, so...

2 responses •

4 people

Bookworms - a new perspective.

Fiacre Banks @xFiacre (13515) • Ireland 8 Apr

A book arrived for me today which wasn’t a surprise because I had ordered it. Written not by a strident right winger who tolerates only a somewhat wooden and uncompromising theology, and of which there are plenty, but by a quiet...

5 responses •

6 people

Cut or uncut?

Fiacre Banks @xFiacre (13515) • Ireland 8 Apr

I was brought up believing, as many were and still are, that cut was always to be preferred over uncut. Now I’m not so sure. I’m talking about lawns and other grassy areas here, and I have made the decision to refrain from...

4 responses •

7 people

Chorus of frogs wins Turkish Eisteddfod.

Fiacre Banks @xFiacre (13515) • Ireland 6 Apr

I grew a beard, lost some weight and climbed out of the bedroom window just as the moon dipped behind the mountains. The ladder Harry had propped against the wall earlier in the afternoon for me had remained unnoticed by the...

4 responses •

5 people

Tightened belts.

Fiacre Banks @xFiacre (13515) • Ireland 4 Apr

With all the talk and angst generated by the faltering world economy with its winners and closers, the BBC has offered sage advice on its web page on how to navigate harsh economic times. Under the heading “Three things you can...

8 responses •

10 people

Success.

Fiacre Banks @xFiacre (13515) • Ireland 4 Apr

Above is photographic evidence, if it were needed, of my horticultural prowess - a potato I planted at the beginning of March has poked its new nose through the soil to say hello. I don’t really eat potatoes that much, but they...

5 responses •

8 people

Pots.

Fiacre Banks @xFiacre (13515) • Ireland 4 Apr

It seems that I might have gone quite potty about plant pots. I’m finding all sorts of receptacles in which to house my plants and I’m likely to run out of room it seems. For example, photographed above is a teapot we no longer...

4 responses •

7 people