8 posts tagged “leitrim”

So, it looks like Jack has found a little space that's all his own.

He's probably decided that he's tired of being surrounded by rats that he can't get at.

Our cat has a new hang-out

He's sitting on top of a bed standing on it's end. The bed is behind a cupboard that blocks off the extra room in our house to which we aren't allowed access. The landlord is keeping a load of stuff in there apparently (or possibly some skeletons, we don't know for sure).

Over the past weekend we had a series of guests arrive and ended up with 7 people living in the house for a few days. Thoroughly enjoyable weekend had by all, with lots of messing about with the camera. Some strange photos to be seen here:

Well it's general election day in Ireland. I'll be heading off to cast my vote in a little while -  the first time outside of a Dublin constituency.

I have to admit that while I knew roughly who was who in my old constituency, I don't even know who the current representatives are here in Leitrim. Whoever they are I am fairly sure I'll be voting against them.

In fact, feeling a little embarrassed by my lack of knowledge there, I've just used the power of the internet to discover that:

1. My constituency is actually called "Roscommon Leitrim South"
2. The people I can choose to vote for number 2 x Fianna Fail, 2 x Fine Gael, 1 x Labour, 1 x Green, 1 x Sinn Fein, 2 x Independent
3. There are 3 seats available
4. Currently those seats are divided into 2 x Fianna Fail, 1 x Fine Gael

These discoveries amuse me somewhat. The main reason being that this is exactly what I had assumed would be the case. Despite Leitrim's attraction to the artistic type due to low cost of living etc, it's probably still a very Fianna Fail dominated region and there would be a lot of old ties in that direction.

If you're interested in finding out a little more about your constituency (and I mean a little, as there is a limited amount of info here), check out mycandidate.ie

Jack loves to perch on the back of my office chair and keep an eye on the rats.

If you look closely you can see that one of the rats is watching right back. I think it's Ratsy Cline, the mother. She has always been a bit more cautious of Jack than the other ones.

Jack watches the rats

Donn and Jack

I think this must be the closest I've felt to being a parent as of yet.

Our cat, Jack, is a bit of a strange one. He was born with an underdeveloped cerebellum, which means that he's the least co-ordinated cat I've ever known - he can have trouble walking in a straight line, and is liable to fall over at any moment. He's got one hell of a character though, and he's highly entertaining.

Anyway, as a result of his disability we decided that it was probably best to keep him in the house, for fear that he'd wander into our lane-way and just fall over at first sight of a car. So for the first year of his life, he's been a housebound cat. We take him outside when it's sunny but generally keep an eye on him.

Jack chilling in the grass

The last few weeks we've been letting him hang around outside on his own, and to our delight he's been coming back safely and not really venturing too far... until tonight.

So, this afternoon he meandered off and didn't reappear. We had a brief look around but couldn't find him (and he doesn't respond to being called at all). So we decided to just leave our doors open and hope he'd return. Hours went by and no sign of him and as sunset approached we went out around the fields and up and down our lane. Still no sign and our neighbours hadn't spotted him at all.

I was definitely left with a feeling of being a worried parent! As it got dark we called off the search and just left the back door open, feeling somewhat concerned.

At nearly 11pm he finally wandered back in and went straight for his food bowl! Relief. I feel much more comfortable about it now and figure he's going to be safe enough being out by himself. It's nice to hear him clattering around the house again, falling over and bouncing around.

Jack in the out-box

New Bed!

Well this weekend I decided to splash out and treat the hell out of myself.

I've just bought a brand new 5ft x 6ft king-size double-bed mattress! It's a back-supporter one as well. Extremely lush. As you can see it takes up most of my room - but sure what else is a bedroom for other than sleeping (and being extremely comfortable whilst doing so)!

In fact I think outside of computers and my car, it's probably the most expensive single item I've ever bought. So it's time to mind the pennies for the next while.

Still, it's definitely worth it. I don't know myself, and when Gaia is staying over we have a lot more room to sprawl than we did when I had an old 4x6 mattress on the ground.

I've also got the added plus of having picked up a futon base from a friend, so I'm using that as a base for this. I'm much higher off the ground than I'm used to, but it's nice. The cat seems to like it as well.

Show us some art in your home.

Robot Guard

This piece of work doesn't have a name - except maybe Robot Guard. It was made by a good artist friend of mine called Dermot Finn.

Dermot came to visit us last summer and myself and Donn were so busy with work that we had to completely ignore him and he found some scraps of wood to entertain himself with. So, our bad hospitality resulted in us getting some good art-work! It seems unjust.

Boy have I been slack of late. Too many things going on to be able to keep up and keep posting.

In general I have been driving up and down to Dublin a lot. Tomorrow is no exception, well, today at this stage, as I have to drive down and back up in the same day.

For those of you who don't know, Leitrim is in the North-West part of Ireland, and we're about a 2-3 hour drive from Dublin, depending on the time of day you go at. Traffic in Dublin during the day is appalling, and it can easily add an hour to your journey time.

I'm driving down tomorrow to collect a number of computer parts from a friend who is moving back to the states, Alabama to be precise, and I'll pick up my girlfriend. Gaia has her college exams next week and is going to spend the weekend up here trying to study.

I have a tonne of work to get through as well, so hopefully we can support each other in this regard!

My main concern at the moment is trying to compose 3 short pieces of music that I've been commissioned to write for a dance piece that is playing on the 16th and 17th of December. I am massively running out of time and have done fuck all for it. I really wish I hadn't taken this on, but I need anything to get me out of a rut of not writing music. I've written 2 tracks this year, which is painfully poor. Mostly this has been because of my work load and generally being in front of a computer most of the day - it doesn't enthuse you to stay in front of one for yet more hours working on music.

Anyway, general rant over. I'm going to sleep now. Tomorrow is a busy day.