There 's a one eyed yellow idol to the north of Katmandoo

In early May while driving between Burt & Bridgend I noticed this unusual feature on the side of Scalp mountain overlooking the village of Burnfoot. In a moment of sheer inspiration I thought that it resembled an eye keeping a lookout over the village and surrounding countryside. The J. Milton Hayes poem from my school days came to mind I but could not get past the first line! So I stopped the car and took a picture.

No doubt some one will be saying; "It would fit you better to have been looking where you were going instead of watching at the hills"! But it is unusual to have a camera when you see something interesting to take. How many times have you heard people say; "if I only had a camera"?

Whins, gorse, furze or whatever you may call it grows in dry ground and as far as I know it is in bloom every month of the year except for July. It has the reputation of being extremely hardy but a lot of it was killed in Donegal by the frosts in the winter just past and gorse fires caused more damage. However, the resilient whin will not give up that easy and next spring it will again light up the country side, contrasting well with the "fertiliser green" of the fields.

A Day of Winning - Teresa Duffy

At the European Open this week another Ulster man namely Darren Clarke started well and today Darren lifted the Clariot Jug at Royal St George's golf club, it was a great day for the man from Dungannon.
Another great victory also for Donegal against Derry in Clones, first Ulster win for Donegal since 1992. There will be some celebrations in the county for the rest of the week. Good luck to Donegal in the rest of the campaign.

where are have all the bloggers gone

Hi Everyone where have you all gone miss the blogs

so get cracking and write some otherwise we will get out

of practise

Loneliness CP

He limps along home nearly time for his tea

Pauses to massage his painful left knee

He's well on in years now, but still gets around

Though not quite so quick now at covering the ground

His spirit is willing ,but this body says 'Hey,

You can't react now as you did yesterday

He shrugs his shoulders ,and grins to himself

Face it old mate -you're on Father Time's shelf

Slowly he paces the path to his door

One turn of the the key ,and it opens once more

No need to call out hello love it's me

There's nobody to pour him a nice cut of tea

He thinks back to the time of a far different life

When his called would be answered by his loving wife

Oh!Why was she taken? his only true love

Nobody knows but the good Lord above

Life wasn't exciting- just a husband and wife

Who tried to be caring .and lead a good life

He smiles at her picture, and his heart filled with sorrow

Maybe, my love, I'll be with you tomorrow

He sits there alone ,and thinks back down the years

Finding it hard to fight back the tears

He's been told he needs tonics and medicine and pills

Doesn't anyone know that loneliness kills

A Day Trip to Belfast - Teresa Duffy

Wednesday 22nd June was the History Links day trip to The Ulster Museum, Open Top Bus and Belfast City Hall.

We the Raphoe gang gathered in the Diamond at 9.15 in anticipation of our journey to Belfast, we were like school children all talking and excited about "Our Day Away". The yellow bus arrived just after 9.15, we then had to wait on one of our friends to arrive, Kathleen the coordinator gave us our name tags and asked Paddy Joe Coyle if he had pins in the shop, so up Paddy Joe got out of his seat and headed over to the shop, he eventually came back with the pins. We attached our name tag, pins and all to our cardigans, jumpers or whatever was handiest! Kathleen by the way had her cardigan on inside out, so she had to change it and was quite embarrassed NOT!

The journey there seemed to fly by, the weather when we got to Belfast was lovely, we arrived at the Ulster Museum and had tea/coffee and a jumbo scone with butter and jam.

We looked around the museum, then went to the Wellington Park Hotel for soup and sandwiches. After the food we were asked to fill in a survey, pencils were handed out with the surveys, and after some chatting and exchanging views the surveys were handed back to Stephen, Ronan and Kathleen.

The open top bus arrived, but it was a closed double Decker bus, thank goodness as the rain started but was not heavy. The bus tour guide was great craic and very interesting indeed. We went up the Shankill Road and down it again and also the Falls Road very interesting to see the different cultures and colours.

We finished the open top bus tour at Belfast City Hall where a few went in around it and others went shopping, mind you one hour did not give enough time to see everything.

We boarded our own bus and headed down the M2 next stop was the Oak-leaf Restaurant, food was served and the craic was mighty. There was not a dull moment with Kathleen she was the life and soul at our table.

Back in Raphoe at 22.30 hours a great day was had by all... Thanks to Stephen, Ronan and Kathleen.


Photos: The History Links Group outside The Ulster Museum. The three men busy filling out the surveys in the Wellington Park Hotel. lf-rg Harry Wallace, John Patterson and Hugh Doherty.

History links

Our last day at the History links here in Strabane

WE had a lovely lunch with Ronan Mary and Stephen

then we went to see Ann and Bob Kavanaghs beautiful

Garden they made us all so welcome and we all really

enjoyed it so a big thank you to Ronan Mary and Stephen

for all the hard work will keep in touch with emails and facebook

and not forgetting the blogs to everyone in the history links have

a lovely summer and take care and keep well

Carmel