Northern Holland in January is not exactly a hospitable place: 50 mph winds driving some needle like rain. We did enjoy some fair skies on occasion thankfully. Our B&B was very hospitable though: much like staying at the poor relatives really. The Dutch countryside is dotted with 19th and early 20th century barns, giant things, with earlier homes attached at one end. Our B&B was such a place: a 16th century cottage attached to a thatched barn from the 1880s, we actually had to walk through the barn to go inside. Really nice folk running the place too. Big time birders who pointed us to those secret spots that only birders know about. (The birders reading this know exactly what I mean: Jaap, the husband, pointed us to a crook in a road by a pier to look for snow buntings and damned if there wasn't a big ole flock there.) Breakfast was at the family kitchen table: an assortment of whatever cereals, bread and juice were about, plus several enormous hunks of Dutch cheese. Oh and the local liver sausage: think liverwurst with cloves. A really fine way to start a day of birding on a cold blustery January morning.
Back home in Ireland, the big news items are more priest scandals, gangsters and cocaine, and the US primaries. It is sometime hard to fathom how excited the rest of the world is at the fact that Bush Jr cannot be re-elected. There is a palpable sense of relief at the 7 years of bewildering nonsense and arrogance coming to an end. I'd call it something akin to joy. The Irish in particular want to like America and with W in charge they can't. As if the Bush administration and it's excesses weren't bad enough, the sub-prime mortgage thing rippled across the Atlantic and washed ashore as a hurricane. America sneezes and the world catches a cold... And the drama of the primaries so far has just entranced a lot of people over here.
Finally, what I'm listening to these days.
- The Once soundtrack, if you haven't seen it look it up. Your man Glen Hansard, the singer-songwriter star of the film, is something of a national hero over here. Irish know him for his band The Frames: you know him as the awkward red head bass player from The Commitments.
- White Stripes, Elephant. Lo-Fi goodness.
- Martin Sexton, Black Sheep. More singer-songwriter goodness.
- Hank Thompson, A Six Pack to Go. Beer-swilling, honky-tonkin', country goodness.
Finally finally, work is crazy busy, the Irish rugby team is struggling again, and Jared just turned 6! Happy Birthday, amigo!
Slainte.
