About Me

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Cork, Ireland
Wondering what the hell to do with my life! In the meantime living on a gorgeous little island. That's me!

Monday 29 January 2007


Right then, this is me with hair for those of you who cant remember the days!! Sorry to all my avid readers for the loooooong delay in posting, but I have been rather busy I'll have you know, so no slagging! Its beginning to look like this may actually be a monthly update, which is still a step forward from no updates at all, so shut it!


Life on d'island continues apace, and with 2 jobs taking up all my time theres not much left for other stuff. Im still working in the pub most nights, and am even cooking the bar meals these days (incredibly good steaks I must say). The picture of the pub lacks a certain major ingredient - me! But as I have not yet mastered the art of being in two places at once it's just gonna have to do! the murphys tap is one nearest you all - a fine pint of course.....
A new job at the fish farm is taking up the daytimes - its supposed to be casual, but 8-6 Mon/Fri is less casual than I had expected I must say. The project is great, an abalone farm, and its busy busy busy up there at the moment. Most people do a bit of everything, but each of them has a speciality, whereas I seem to have come in at a time when evrything needs to be done, so am getting a lightning introduction to it all, although this week I have settled into training with Aurkene, a wonderful girl from the Basque country, who is in charge of the hatchery side. This week has been fantastic, me and Aurkene were fertilising all the time, and we are now the proud parents of 3 million babies. We are taking the next year off work as we are a bit tired, and naming the little buggers will be tough.

It really has been fantastic though, chemically inducing the adults to spawn, then collecting the eggs and sperm, fertilising the eggs etc. We did that on Friday, and after only half an hour you could see the fertilised eggs dividing in two, then four, then eight etc. On saturday they were free swimming larvae, and today they had shells and you could see them searching for something to stick on to. All pretty amazing really.
Apart from work theres not been too much else happenning really, the weather has been exceptionally calm (but cold), and the light down here is out of this world.
Theres often some kind of unearthly sensation that the whole world is glowing! Of course the one day that i had a few hours to walk around with the camera was the only gloomy, cloudy day - so no shots i'm afraid, apart from the one here.
Birding has been a lot better than expected, with highlights since christmas being barn owl, yellow legged gull, whimbrel, glaucous gull, woodcock, and 4 black throated divers together today.
Apart from last week however, it has been pretty horrendous for the last month or two, with virtually contant storms, some of which have been magnificent in their violence. It remains a huge pleasure however, to wake up in the morning, look out onto a gut wrenching blower, and think "I am so happy I'm looking at it, and not on it!" Managed a couple of walks during these storms, and it was seriously hard work, air filled with spray, and bent double, struggling for every inch of headway. Worth it? Naturally!
So on that I'll leave you all, as I'm absolutely wrecked. Leah, I promise theres a mail on the way shortly, hope everything is going fantastically well. Marky - same!
Goodnight all, sweet dreams!

6 comments:

Leah said...

Finally!! and worth waiting for!! always wanted u to have loadsa babies (so i wouldn't have to have any) but not sure i can afford to be aunty to 3 million of 'em!! only 1 thing for it big bruva....keep the prettiest and sell the rest!
photos are gorg, wish i could drop round...
love and miss u, x

Leah said...

oh and for all you birdy folk.....sea eagles all over the gaff here... i've had it up to bloody here with 'em ; )

Carmo said...

hey fella, great to see some news. sounds amazing on de island. would love to be there now, doing a bit of storm walking. ah, the memories. am freakin tired of JP man...time to put the wheels in motion I think. Will update de blog on the bird front this week. all I'll say is 295 now. Leah, hi, will be on to your blog tomorrow night!!

Anonymous said...

oi gimp - sort yer hair out eh?

Harry said...

Hi Ciaran,
You kept this quiet! You'll have to do a write-up about last Friday now, of course...
H

Anonymous said...

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