An Island Off the Coast of Spain

I've always been fascinated by stories featuring mermaids.

Imagine my surprise finding a restaurant at an island off the coast of Spain serving mermalade. It got me thinking...

Languages are intriguing. There's thoughts, probabilities and possibilities about how they all came to be. Words give definition to our daily lives. We respond or react according to our understanding of language ~ be that verbal or non.

How much credit do we give Shakespeare or other writers of plays and such through the centuries who've added to our repertoire...and is that English or French or does it really matter?


Why not mermalade ~ a delicious condiment created in the minds of seafarers dreaming of their lady love back home on dry land? The interpretation is not mine to give.

A Dose of Dublin

In Dublin you can't escape the sense and the scents.

The sense of wonder at the history of the city; the scents of cigarette smoke, rotting rubbish and day-old urine left by drunks.

She is still stunning however.

Ireland, as a whole, is a country who's had her fair share of abuse through the centuries and her people have not gone down without a fight. Many a story is told on tour (and in bars) of rebellions and uprisings and battles fought and mostly lost. Their warriors are legends though, held aloft with reverence even in the face of what some might term their hard-headed foolishness.

This is a nation with a record for being beaten down but rising again. And again. And again.

As Jonathan Swift, one of Ireland's best authors said, "A man should never be ashamed to own that he has been in the wrong, which is but saying that he is wiser today than yesterday."

No shite.

I know there are others who've done it before.

But around 30 hours straight travel with a Hong Kong interlude knocks you. So, here I am in the UK's south west ready to roll up my sleeves and hunt down some folk from the Ol' Country...except, when you're in Europe you realise just how young New Zealand is.

The churches up/down the road were built before Maori even set eyes on Aotearoa. That's what I call history.

No shite.