Feeds:
Posts
Comments

Posts Tagged ‘Honest 2 Goodness’

A post earlier in the week by Clare over at An American in Ireland set me thinking.  Clare was commenting on how the food blogging community in Ireland has blossomed over the past 3 years.  There have been so so many achievements by so many.  And how true that is.  However, it also struck me how bad we, Irish, are at praising each other.

We need to learn from our American cousins!

So here is my tribute to the Irish blogging scene.

As I wrote recently this blog was three years old on 14th October and we had a very happy birthday present indeed, nothing could beat winning the Best Lifestyle Blog Award!   Over the last three years I’ve met some lovely people via the blog, twitter and facebook…. some of whom have become what I reckon will be lifelong friends.  There really are some great people involved in the Irish blogging scene.

I volunteered to help collate the nominations in the recent Blog Awards Ireland.  Not too tasking a job really, just putting nominations into a spreadsheet…. but….. when you’re over a third of the way through and something happens to the memory stick and you loose everything you’ve entered!  Well there were rude words and lots of frustrated curses at the computer.   So it was back to the start!

And this is where those lovely blogging people came to my aid!  Thank you to Wendy over at My Chef At Home who had finished her entries so she came to my assistance, and between Wendy and help from my neighbour I got the list finished in time for the deadline.

However, I have to tell you one of the biggest distractions when collating all those blogs was having to have the discipline not to go and have a sneak look see.

Gosh, there are some brilliant blogs!  I want to share with you some great blogs I’ve come across.  Some are new to me and some I’ve been following for a while.  Some bloggers I’ve met, others I am looking forward to meeting someday.

We are a land of dreamers, writers and beautiful imagery…. most definitely a nation of Saints & Scholars!

The view from Cork Screw Hill

The view from Cork Screw Hill

For photography that will make you so hungry just looking at the images, it is no wonder they are regularly featured on the big food photography site Foodgawker.  Check out these three ladies… how they produce such amazing photos, considering that they lead busy lives with small children about!

Well done ladies…. I envy your patience to style the photographs so beautifully!

This next blog, is just truly stunning photographs of nature.  I am so envious of the photographs.  What beautiful imagery of this lovely country of ours.

For adventures in gardening and a great sharing of knowledge.  I am enjoying the fun, the recipes, and the learning with all these gardeners – some of whom I have never met.

I have been known to have the occasional rant here on this blog, so it is good to know there are others out there who like to rant too!  So here I’ll share with you a lady and gentleman who like to tell it like it is!

  • Maggie at Food Born & Bred writes so well about the way our food has, and is, evolving.
  • The curmudgeon over at Head Rambles…. who does his best to hide his soft side 🙂

So saving the best til last well done to all these ladies who have achieved so much.  You should all be so proud!

  • Colette at Cakes, Bakes and Other Bits… who got not 1 but 2 recipes printed in A Modern Irish Cookbook by Goodalls
  • Lily at A Mexican Cook in Ireland who this year has taken a stall at the Honest2Goodness market and is selling Mexican
    food on line! No excuses!
  • Lisa over at Nenagh Gal, who has just launched the most amazing on-line Isle Magazine
  • Lorna, Irish Farmerette, who despite being one of the busiest people I know, joined forces with two other great ladies and organised the Irish Blog Awards this year!
  • Mona (and Ron, aka The Chef) of WiseWords what with running a busy household, study, work and this year launched their book ‘The Chef & I’
  • Sharon of FoodFancies who despite all the talk of doom and gloom and recession – has gone for her dream and opened her own cafe

This is just a little snippet of the Irish blog scene.

I could keep going on here forever.  If I’ve missed you out, please don’t be insulted.

However, if you’d like to spread some lurve … why not tell us all about your favourite Irish blogs?

Read Full Post »

Where is 2012 going?

June was hectic here in Redwood…. and July has been even busier!

And as for summer?  What is that?  We’ve had more rain than you could even imagine!  We had had a silly plan to build a duck pond this year!  Silly us!  No need to even to worry the lawn has stayed flooded and the ducks are extremely happy.

What have we been up to this month….

Well we had another 6 enthusiastic pig people here at the beginning of the month for the pig rearing course.

One participant flew in from Portugal….. which spawned a whole new idea…. how’s about house swaps among pig breeders?  Well why not?  We could easily go to Portugal and mind some pigs…. and they could have a lovely holiday here while minding our guys?  A great idea 🙂

We had the lovely Daili come and stay with us for a week… and we convinced her to start her own blog 🙂

We had Mr. and Mrs. Katzwizkaz come and stay and Mr. Katzwizkaz was a wizz at helping Alfie out with fixing up new fencing.  Thank you so much!

We spent a weekend in Dublin for my aunt’s 80th birthday.  Thank you to my sister and her 3 friends who ‘house-swapped’ with us… the four city girls came and looked after the menagerie here while we minded her cat and dogs!!!

 

While in Dublin we got to spend time at the Honest 2 Goodness market in Glasnevin – a great place to hang out and chat to all the traders – we were there for hours.  Too busy chatting to take photos!  We had a quick visit to Ikea.  The celebrations were held at Roly’s – our first time there – and very nice it was too! (No recession going on in either Roly’s or Ikea I can tell you!)

Alan and Lily from My Mexican Shop came for a quick visit to get their staycation off to a good start.

My cousin came for a few nights….

And in between times we harvested, weeded, made butter, jams and brownies, and I went back to work with my old boss for a couple of weeks…..

I need a holiday!!!!!!!!!!

Read Full Post »