Grannymar

I had a great few days away from home and feel like I was on holiday for a month.

You heard about the lists, the tasks and the curtains so now you want the interesting bits.

Saturday meant an early start; we left home at 8am in order to reach Hotel Kilkenny and registration for PodCamp Ireland before 10 am. We drove through thick fog most of the way, so the journey was slow. Seeing friendly faces as we arrived soon brought the sunshine to our hearts. I was not the oldest and the generations were like steps of stairs to the youngest little lady that I saw at lunchtime, a mere one year old!

Ken McGuire Bernie Goldbach & Krishna De all did a trojan job in the past few months organising the event. It may have been an ‘unconference’ event but without the background work it would not have happened.

So what did I do?

I hugged, or should I say Keith tried to crush my ribs!

I listened with Marian while Darragh talked.

I learned, Ellie May shows me how to use an iPod.

I talked about blogging and Podcasting for the older generation.

AND

I was brought home to meet ‘The Parents’

We arrived back with Elly & George in time for a sumptuous dinner on Sunday night and again enjoyed friendship, fun and laughter for several hours.

On Monday a workman was due so I stayed around to let him in. I had three more fine young Toyboys on Tuesday and one of them came three times! The work was completed on Tuesday and everyone is satisfied.

Fearing I would be charged rent if I stayed any longer, the bags were pack and ready for the return journey on Wednesday. I didn’t go straight home. I went to meet and dallied awhile with another fine handsome Toyboy.

Then I was presented with this:

How’s your Latin?

Some of the 110 attendees that I actually had conversations with at PodCamp Ireland were:

Evert Bopp (Tipperary)

Mike Buckley (St Louis, MO, USA)

Cian Mac Mahon (Dun Laoighaire, Dublin) wants to do a Podcast with me.

Darragh Doyle (Dublin)

Keith Shirley (Carlow)

John Keyes (Kilkenny)

Rosemary Khelifa (Dublin) (whose talk I missed as it clashed with mine) gave me a lovely neck massage.

Elly Parker (Adamstown)

Martha Rotter (Dublin)

Gabriela Avram (Limerick)

Nicola Brown (Carlow)

Simon McGarr (Dublin)

Deborah Hadley (Tullamore) found her way to our hearts with delicious Brownies.

Jan Buckley (St. Louis, USA)

Marian Roche (Limerick) who made the PodCamp Logo buttons

Dean Whitbread (UK) presented and chatted despite an ear infection. Thanks Dean.

Sabrina Dent (Cork)

John Handelaar (Cork)

Keith Bohanna (Kilkenny)

Niamh Smith (Dublin)

Gav Reilly (Dublin)

Ian Healy (Kilkenny)

Jason Roe (Dublin)

Conor Lynch (Meath)

Marie Boran (Carlow)

Sabrina Marczak (Canada)

Katherina Fay (Dublin)

George Pratt (Dublin)

Sinead Murnane (Dublin)

Cathy Fowley (Dublin)

Sharon Tobin (Kilkenny)

If we chatted and I missed your name put it down to a senior moment.

More photos at Pix.ie

Over the years I have received many a gift. There were pens, gloves, scarves, and of course books. More recently perhaps due to my age the gifts have become smelly. There are candles, lotions and potions, perfumes and pickles, all accepted gracefully and used or passed on to someone in greater need.

I have always preferred the gift that was thoughtfully selected to cater for my interests and hobbies, rather than the latest fashionable ‘must have’ at exorbitant cost.

This wooden spoon was carried from York, England at the end of Elly’s first school trip and week away without her parents. She was all of nine years old. The harvest mouse and my name in poker work on the bowl of the spoon have long been worn to a shadow. The spoon has served me well over the years mixing cakes, stirring jam or many a large pot of soup. Each time I take the spoon in my hand I think of that little girl who excitedly handed me the gift as she recalled the fact she nearly missed the bus back to the hotel while queuing to have my name engraved on the spoon.

There were the twin machine sewing needles to give a double row of stitching that she brought back from London the following year and the measuring tape bought the first time she went shopping in Dublin without me.

These are items I have used many a time and often. Little did she or I think that that the measuring tape bought in Dublin all those years ago would be used in the measuring and making of her wedding outfit many years later!

At the weekend I received another gift, it was rather different and something we would all find hard to refuse.

It was a Money Tree! The gift came from Steph.

A money tree would be very useful these days with all the talk of recession. My mind began to wander… If it was real money what would I buy?

My needs are simple. Since the tree came from Steph I would buy a celebration gift for her and her hubby on this special day. Tonight I will raise a glass to you both and to another 30 years together.

I would give Elly & George a gift. Fill the Oil tank. Pay my bills for the year. Carry out running repairs on the bungalow. Pay someone to do the garden, perhaps update the car.

Now if you had a money tree how would you spend your windfall?

So you want to know what I did.

I attended

I did, and it was fun!

Andy puts us on the list!

Apart from the Tekkie Presentations I learned….

The story of Good Coffee

How to shave by

How to improve my life

Conference Essentials: Water, Internet, Coffee, Electricity,Signs and I will add Loos.

How Mogulus.com works the system used by Richard Jolly to Live Stream the events of the day.

Phil & Davy check the light.

I had the chance to network (did I get that right?) with new people and made new friends, now I have new Blogs to follow.

In the afternoon Darragh Doyle and I led a conversation on Blogging:

What it’s about, how you should (and shouldn’t), how to enjoy it, sharing your stories, selling your brand and ideas, building your audience. Using blogs and social networking together, for your benefit

Quotes from the day:

I really enjoyed your conversation technique. I wouldn’t have said anything otherwise… ~ Phil O’Kane to Darragh.

Barcamp Belfast was great fun yesterday, the event, the presentation, but most of all almost everyone engaging at the event is what made it ~ Davy Mc

Andy, Phil and others put tremendous effort into the preparation for and all during the day. I know that we attendees appreciated their efforts. Many thanks

I came home with booty:

A new T-shirt (Elly have we swapped lives?), a laptop bag, badges and money!

Thanks Andy for the bag it will be put to good use. I found the four ‘AU’ badges and the penny inside one of the pockets, no tenners I promise! I will keep them until the next photo walk.

Darragh I will wear my ‘Hugged’ badge with pride.

P.S. Darragh suggests that all the Toyboys who received ‘A Grannymar Toyboy’ badge should have a photo taken wearing it and post it on their blog and link to me… That boy has some funny ideas I still have a few to pass on.

I look forward to the next BarCamp and hope to see you there.

Regular visitors here might have noticed that GM was having trouble. Of course you are all to well behaved to say anything incase my feelings might be hurt. My posts have behaved badly and the font size threw a wobbly!

Following consultations with my advisors at enormous expense, that problem looks like it is solved. Back posts need a little more tweaking when time permits. Windows Live Writer is not very fond of WordPress 2.5 so I am ditching it. I need to check that the catagories stay as I set them and not jump about and the line spacing and paragraphs behave. So this is really a test post.

Thank you to all my advisors who with time and patience sort out my little worries. It cannot be easy when I keep referring to problems in non-tekkie language. I would hate to lose my friends and virtual family. Knitting will never hold fascination for me again!

*+*+*+*

Now I hate advertising on the outside of my clothes.

I remember old men walking the streets of Dublin when I was young, they were wearing sandwich boards. These boards were advertisments for shops or businesses or sometimes had a religious quotation. I always felt sorry for the men who earned their daily crust this way.

Now T-shirts slogans are a horse of a different colour. I saw one I really liked recently it said:

In my next life

I’m going to have more memory installed!

I arrived on Thursday

to a Red carpet welcome

and it was a pity I had to

arrive like this:

All because finally after 30 years in

Northern Ireland I became an

Orange woman!

Now you have all watched, listened and read while I complained about the endless dreary grey days over the past several months. Alas I spent most of it indoors. Indoors makes for pale people and ‘pale’ is certainly not my colour. My pride took over and after a lengthy debate (five minutes) drastic measures were needed. An appointment was quickly made at my local beauty salon. It had worked for Elly & George’s wedding back last June, everyone said how well I looked, so why not just repeat the performance once more!

I first had the now grey eyebrows and eyelashes dyed to add definition and then when all was dry I went to the spray paint shop! Now my instructions were as before: I wanted a healthy glow and not to look like I was marinated in carrot and orange juice for a month! She must have misheard the instruction, the difficulty was that the colour became stronger as it settled in. By morning Mr Robert Kilroy Silk was anaemic compared to me! Having arranged to meet Elly by lunchtime I decided to set out and she would come up with a solution for me. Little did I realise how punny that would turn out to be!

The eyelashes were the correct colour but alas the eyebrows looked as they were painted with an inch wide brush and the colour was completely wrong for me. If I was no picture, then Elly’s face sure made up for it! “OMG! What happened to you mum?” replaced the usual excited welcome and hug.

While I sipped coffee frantic calls were made to Elly’s good friend Ena at Isis Beauty Salon, and appointments were juggled about to accommodate me. Ena set to work and sorted the eyebrows. It was at this point we reached item No 3 from yesterdays list. You remember the ‘dipped, stripped and went a step further than Cleopatra!’ It is what you have waited a full day for. Using alcohol soaked pads she gently started to rub my face. “Yes its working”, squealed Elly, and I am not sure if it was encouragement for Ena or to appease me. Since I was lying down with my eyes closed I had no idea if I was now striped like a Zebra or spotted like a Leopard!

“VODKA!” said Ena. “Buy some on the way home and use it to bleach the skin”

Cleopatra bathed in Asses’ milk, so Grannymar would bathe in Vodka! I did and you all saw the result on Saturday! “This will make great posting material” I said to Elly. “Yes mum it will, but save it until next week or everyone will be walking up to you all night and giving you funny looks!” A couple of hours and I was ready for anything.

George arrived home with his work colleague Keith, our guest for dinner. Since he was going to the Irish Blog Awards and the Photo Walk organised by Red Mum with Elly early in the day it was natural for him to stay. We had great fun and we laughed about my disaster as we all prepared dinner. When you visit Elly it is all hands on deck and everyone plays a part in preparing the food. Wine was poured and the stories were told. It was a lovely beginning to a great weekend. So you see I was not kidding about having a Toyboy for dinner.

Once I entered the Alexander Hotel the Toyboys were surrounding me and falling to their knees.

Darren Byrne on his knees

Late in the evening I shared a couch with Twenty Major while being interviewed by Conn Ó Muíneacháin! Sworn to secrecy so there will be no pictures of Twenty! We finished with the story of the young gentleman who earlier shook my hand and told me I made his night, (now you don’t expect me to name him here, do you?). I told Conn that it was many a long year since I made any man’s night! With that the tape ran out and it was time for Cinderella to leave the Ball.

We had fun, we had laughter and met amazingly talented people, it was an honour to be there and the memories will linger for many a long year! Without you, my friends who read my blog and add the comments, none of this would happen>

Thank You!

Some people love Animals so much they even sleep with them. Come on, we all know someone who lets a dog or cat sleep on the bed!

Some people love Books, to buy, collect, look at and to read.

Some people love Chocolate and take pleasure from every bite.

Some people love to Drive and will go the long way round to get to the shop on the corner.

Some people love Football and follow their team all over the country.

Some People love Golf and will chase a ball for miles, hour after hour, no matter what the weather.

Some People love Shopping, so spend hours flexing the plastic!

Some people love to Talk, and never give their fellow man a chance to say anything.

Some people love their TV because they can watch a favourite Soap. Since I keep my soap in the bathroom I have no reason to have a TV!

Some people love Wine, giving them an excuse to organise a party every night.

What do I love? Well…..

Now tell me what you love.

Grandad asked a question on Saturday.

The conditions of his release from a short spell in captivity include lying low and not interfering with his neighbours property or staff building workers, shooting Tourists, or ranting and raving about the dedicated and hardworking personnel who so unselfishly and wholeheartedly give of themselves for the good of Ireland by serving in Government. This leaves little for him to do so in his boredom he committed a few short words to the laptop and asked a question.

Now this was either a ploy to check up on the loyalty of his followers, or to get them to do all the work and fill Cyberspace with their answers and keep his stats up. There is also the possibility that the answers would provide meat fodder topics for further blog posts.

The question he posed was ‘Why do I(you) Blog?’

I quickly sent my first thoughts winging over the Interweb:

• • Elly walked me into it.
  • The novelty.
  • Now to keep in contact with all the virtual friends I have made.

Happy enough with that I went about my daily chores. Alas there was no peace, the question haunted me at every twist and turn.

So, Why do I blog?

Yes, the answers above were all correct. Elly did walk or push me into it. I was her guinea pig for Bar Camp South East way back in September ‘06. I did say “what would I want to do that for? and many other unprintable things as well. But we I got there and my first post was two sentences!!!! Yes two.

Elly was more concerned with me learning about Podcasting. I did my best, and my first effort The Favour was all of two or three minutes. Way to long for anyone to suffer listening to such a dreadful voice!

With time I became more comfortable and adventurous, the blog posts grew longer as did the Podcasts. I learned to insert graphics and photos and last week I managed to add a mini video clip.

Slowly, very slowly over time the comments started to arrive. There are some folk who visit and tip-toe away saying nothing, and that is their right, but there are other stalwarts who visit everyday adding their wisdom, another point of view or sense of fun. At this stage I feel they are my friends and I cherish them. Not being able to ‘Run the Roads’, as they say here in Norn Iron, as much as I would like, I appreciate my blogging friends all the more.

Thank you, Elly for the push! Thank you George for your help also (now where are my flags?). I have learned so much since I started, I discovered there is so much more to learn and most important of all plenty more fun to be had.

So in short I blog, and read blogs because:

• I learn from others.
• Ranting or readings rants, raises my blood pressure.
• The laughter is like jogging on the inside.
• The smile some posts put on my face requires the use of more muscles than a frown, and it also keeps the laughter lines curved upwards giving my face a softer look!
• Then there is the ‘T’ word…..

So please visit more, you are good for my health!

This Podcast tells the story of the power of love between a child and his or her favourite toy.

The Velveteen Rabbit

Sleeping Elly and Sammy

Sammy in his bag today

Chrisb from Ms Cellania had time on her hands at the weekend and succeeded in completing two memes. She saw her way to tagging me for the second one ‘7 things about me’. Alas several other folk got there before her. I did complete it the first time round and sidled away from then on.

The other one she did was to Post 5 links to 5 of your previously written posts. Now that seemed easy, all you need is a good memory! Now I wonder where I put my memory. O.K. Elly, I hear you! It’s not in the airing cupboard, pantry or the cutlery drawer!

The Rules:
Post 5 links to 5 of your previously written posts. The posts have to relate to the 5 key words given here (family, friend, yourself, your love, anything you like).
Tag 5 other friends to do this meme. Try to tag at least 2 new acquaintances (if not, your current blog buddies will do) so that you get to know them each a little bit better.
Don’t forget to read the archived post and leave comments.

I had a little drink…. and I had a little think…..I looked back through the pages through my old posts and tried to keep to the rules. Now with ‘Are You Cheerful?’ I could cheat and cover family, friend and Your Love with one post, but that is not really fair. I have to do this properly.

1. Family

This one is easy The Letter Box Clattered… and I have my friend Anne to thank for keeping a letter I sent to her nearly 30 years ago. It tells the story of the very beginning of my very special family.

2. Friend

This time I have chosen a Podcast Do you need a Hat, it tells the story of decorating a hat for a friend and it leads to a story from the past.

3. Yourself

The answers to Have you ever a quiz that Elly tagged me for, gives you some idea about me.

4. Your Love

Do you like Hallowe’en is the easiest to decide upon but it comes again as a Podcast it tells the story of how I met me sweetheart.

5. Anything you like

Who needs a Notebook is another Podcast telling a story from the heart of our kitchen about our kitchen table.

Right, there it is. Now how do I choose 5 people to pick this up?

Well the Irish Blog Awards are waiting for nominations so here is an opportunity for 5 Bloggers to remind us of their worth. Five names have a chance here, but I will pick only three to nominate. Come on sell yourself!

Coffee Helps

Conortje

Gingerpixel

K8 the Gr8

Primal Sneeze

• Get out from under the bird of darkness hovering round my head for the last month or two.

• Realise that lost time can never be found.

• Spend more time outdoors.

• Enjoy the simple things.

• Feel pride bursting through my chest when Elly, George and my friends do well and are happy, and tell them that I love them, at every opportunity.

• Laugh often, long and loud. Laugh until I gasp for breath. Spend lots and lots of time with friends who make me laugh.

• Learn something new - Never let the brain get idle (“You don’t lick knowledge off a stone” A quotation from Tom Murphy’s Grandmother.). “An idle mind is the devil’s workshop.” And the devil’s name is Alzheimer’s!

• Try everything twice. Now where are the Toy boys?

And finally my wish for you in 2008 is:

May peace break into your house and may the thieves come to steal your debts.

May the pockets of your jeans become a magnet of €100 notes.

May love stick to your face like Vaseline and may laughter assault your lips!

May happiness slap you across the face and may your tears be those of joy.

May the problems you had, forget your home address!

In simple words….

May 2008 be the best year of your life, try not to screw it up!!!