News From the Hill

Archive for March, 2010

I was grazing the web as I am wont to do and found the blog for the Centre of Alternative Energy over the water in Wales. It was here that I learnt that World Poetry Day had completely passed me by without notice – apparently it is on March 21st and has been for some years now,

World Poetry Day was declared by United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) in 1999 “to promote the reading, writing, publishing and teaching of poetry throughout the world”  identified as “the unrestricted pursuit of truth” - and presumably the enjoying of poetry throughout the world.

Well, it managed to happen again this year without any of my help because I have only just learnt of it. I did however find an enjoy a lovely post about it over on the CAT blog and I so enjoyed this particular offering that I am going to copy it here -

Less is More, was written by Matt Harvey; poet, writer, broadcaster and Wondermentalist, inspired by the Schumacher conference of the same title:

Can less be more, can more be less?
Well, yes and no, and no and yes
Well, more or less…

More bikes, fewer cars
Less haze, more stars

Less haste, more time
Less reason, more rhyme

More time, less stress
Fewer miles, more fresh (vegetables)

Fewer car parks, more acres of available urban soil
More farmers’ markets, less produce effectively marinated in crude oil

Less colouring, more taste
More mashing, less waste

Fewer couch potatoes, more spring greens
Fewer tired tomatoes, more runner beans

More stillness, less inertia
Less illness, more Echinacea

More community, less isolation
Less just sitting there, more participation!

More wells (not oil ones, obviously), fewer ills
Fewer clean fingernails, more skills

More co-operation, less compliancy
Less complacency, more self-reliancy

Less competition, more collaboration
Less passive listening, more participation!

Less attention defic…, more concentration
Less passive listening, more participation!

(Less repetition)

Less of a warm globe, more a chilly’un
More of a wise world, at least 34 fewer parts of C02 per million

Less stress-related cardio-vascular and pulmonary failure
More nurturing quality time in the company of a favourite clematis or dahlia

More craftsmanship, less built-in obsolescence
More political maturity, less apparently-consequence-free extended adolescence

More believed-to-be-beautiful, known-to-be-useful things
Less cheap, pointless, petroleum-steeped stuff

So Yes, less is more – and enough’s enough…

I am really excited about having moved my blog to a new server courtesy of a local business – Irish Solar.

My blog posts have always been written using renewable energy  because that’s the energy I have – we use a home made wind turbine and a photovoltaic array to provide our electricity.

I was always keen to have this blog hosted on a server that also uses renewable energy however it was not easy to find a solution that I was happy with – until now…

I have two lovely twisted trees in the garden, small but lovely, beag ach tá siad go hálainn.

They have a beautiful but very small amount of colour at this time of year, it’s not even easy to notice unless you are really close up.

The very tip of the opening bud has a teeny tiny little red flower.

Sorry that the photos are not very sharp, the macro ability with my camera phone is limited.

Tóg go bóg é…

It’s still Seachtain na Gaeilge – Irish language week or is it fortnight?  Anyway I am going to attempt to write bilingual blog posts for a while to see how it goes.

B’fheidir go mbeadh mo spellings uafásach ach is maith liom iarracht a dheanamh nios mó Gaeilge a usáid so tá súil agam go bfhuil tú in ann fán liom…

For those of you with little or no Irish what I just said was that maybe my spellings are terrible however I really want to try using more Irish so I hope that you will stick around….

Tá súil agam go raibh lá iontach agat. Is aobhinn liom an week-end – cad fútsa?

Tá seachtain drámiocht ar súil i mBallinamore anois. Nilim cinnte ach b’fheidir go ndeachadh muid chun cúpla a fheicáil.

Tá mo spell-checker ag dul ballistic - níl sé in ann gaeilge a thuiscint ar cur abith.

Ní me cinnte go bhfuil mo chuid spelling ceart in aon chorr – tá seans maith go bhfuil mo spelling uafásach ach is cuma liom – nil me ar scoil iniú agus tá sé nios taibhatach dom iarracht an teanga a usáid…

Tá súil agam go mbeadh lá maith agat amárach…

Anois teach an earraigh