Principles of Fun!!

I was feeling a little down today as you sometimes do in life, when my daughter showed me this website she had stumbled upon:

www.eightprinciples.com

Well, needless to say after watching it I felt so much better – it inspired me.  I suppose life is as good as we make it.  So I am going to try these eight irresistible principles of fun.

Here they are:- (just in case you would like to try them as well…)

1. Stop hiding who you really are

2. Start being intensely selfish

3. Stop following the rules

4. Start scaring yourself

5. Stop taking it all so damn seriously

6. Start getting rid of the crap

7. Stop being busy

8. Start Something

So I am now going to start having some fun and so should you…

Keep smiling

Sailing down the Shannon…

One of my favourite holidays was sailing down the Shannon in Ireland. The first time we decided to do this was tempered by extreme nervousness.

Despite assurances from friends who’ve sailed the Shannon waterways before that it’s one of the easiest skills to pick up, the prospect of piloting a 43-foot bruiser of a cruiser can be daunting.

Our three bedroom cruiser had en suite shower/WCs in each cabin, central heating, double steering capabilities (from inside or up top), bow thrusters that make the job of piloting in even the most confined conditions an absolute breeze, outdoor terrace, sunken galley with gas oven, refrigerator, microwave, CD/radio… This is far from roughing it!

Free to cruise wherever the whim takes us, we decided to head down the Shannon and onto Lough Derg, 32,000 acres of silvery water in the embrace of some of the most stunning countryside in the world.

First we have to wait for Portumna Bridge to swing open, pay the toll and join a small flotilla of other cruisers chugging south.

Half an hour later we’re docking at the small but perfectly formed Castle Harbour, where we have lunch on deck before walking it off around the magnificent Portumna Castle, first completed in 1617 but destroyed by fire in 1826 and restored in recent years by the office of public works.

There’s still enough of the afternoon left to brave another short trip across the water to Terryglass, where St Columba founded his celebrated monastery in 548.

Discovering the popular Derg Inn in the quaint village settles it – this is where we’ll moor overnight.

After a sound sleep owing to the gentle rocking of the boat – over-enthusiastic consumption of the Black Stuff may have had a little to do with it too – our choice of first harbour is justified by the discovery of The Headache Well, a religious relic which yields a free mineral water hangover cure. Only in Ireland!

Fortified by a sip – and a full Irish breakfast cooked up in the galley – we embark on our first full day’s sailing, aiming to reach and moor at Dromineer in the south before nightfall.

There’s time to weigh anchor in the middle of the lough and do a spot of fishing after lunch, before slipping into Dromineer late afternoon.

This is home to the third oldest yachting club in the world, Lough Derg Yacht Club, and an imposing 13th century castle under the shadow of which we tie up for the night.

An early start takes us to the beautiful Mountshannon, home to the largest oak in Ireland and ten minutes by outboard from Inis Cealtra, or Holy Island, where St Caimin had his monastery at the beginning of the 7th century.

We spend a fascinating couple of hours on the tiny island, wandering about the ruins of no less than five churches and taking in the 80-foot round tower and the cemetery where not one of the 80-odd marked graves is later than 12th century. On this island there is a stone with a hole through it – this is the marriage stone. So Joe and I decide to renew our vows by clasping hands through the hole in the stone and declaring our undying love for each other. (ahhhh)

We had our bikes with us so it was great for Venetia and Bianca to ride into the villages we also had Gizmo our shih-Tzu with us.

A leisurely half-hour meander ends at the leafy and secluded little harbour of Scarriff.

It’s the perfect spot for a barbecue… that turns into an all-night party with a group from the only other moored cruiser – socialising being another great feature of life on the waterways.

I suddenly miss boating. I think I am going to have to think about cruising the waterways of France now.

Keep Smiling!

Learn to sing in French and you will learn to speak it…

Bianca & Venetia

Well, I have written about my girls before.  But I am going to tell you about the ezine business that they have started.  Venetia and Bianca for the past couple of months have been working on a business idea and it all came about from their love of music and the fact that we live in France now; so we have had to learn to speak French.

Both my girls were and are home schooled.  Venetia is a qualified IT professional.  She was working for a top Irish newspaper as their graphic designer.  Now Venetia and Bianca have decided to start a business, which they launched this week and have over 4000 visitors a day, by the end of this weekend they will have hit the 100,000 mark.  Anyway I am not going to tell you anything more about it.  What I am going to do is give you the link to their site and you can check it out for yourself at:  http://www.lingolyrics.com

I’m so proud of my daughters. If you do check it out, please let me know what you think.

Oh one more thing…Keep Smiling!

Gadget my cat.

Gadget face

Originally uploaded by siovhinn

I am posting this picture, as it was a request from one of my readers.
I have more pictures of Gadget on my flickr account, please feel free to have a look anytime.

Keep Smiling

You have to wonder why Hannibal ever left Tunisia…

Siovhinn & Bianca - Sahara Desert

As we stepped out of the plane on arriving in Tunisia, we were hit with a dry heat that took our breath away and the sun was not even up yet. We headed to our hotel – the Iberostar Phenicia in Hamamet. It was a very beautiful hotel, everything you could possibly want was at your fingertips.

We spent our first day lazing around the pool and wandering down to the hotel’s private beach. The walk to the beach was along a winding path that took you through rolling green lawn, palm, olive and banana groves to the hotel beach bar. Every night in the main hotel ballroom there would be elaborate versions of shows as diverse as Grease, Phantom of the Opera and even Riverdance. We were never starved for entertainment. The hotel also had shops, jewellers, Turkish baths, massage parlour (which I took full advantage of!). But the best was the Moorish Cafe.

After dinner we would stroll down to the Moorish cafe on the main pool patio where the mischievous Neji – nick-named Ali Baba, would greet us with a great big smile. He would prepare our chicha pipe, aka Hubbly-bubbly. I loved the apple ‘tabac’, it would filter through the water so the nicotine-free smoke arrives cool and delicious on your tongue, full of apple flavour of course. And what goes so nicely with that is; a glass of Cedratine, a gorgeous liquor made from the sweetest dates grown in the oases of the south.

We decided to leave the comfort of our hotel and do a bit of travelling and sightseeing for a couple of days – not before we had experienced the

Joe & venetia - Sahara Desert

markets (souks), which was so much fun: you see, at the markets it is rude not to barter, so we all had a go at buying something from one of the vendors, and I think Bianca our youngest was the best at it. We were always sure not to push it too far though, because it’s important to pay a fair price because the local stall holders and artisans completely depend on this as their only income.

So some of the sights we got to see were: Golden beaches lapped by the Mediterranean, lunar landscapes, drifting dunes of the Sahara, spring washed slopes of the Atlas Mountains – the more exotic attractions were El Jem, home to the finest example of Roman architecture in Africa, Thysdrus – the 1,800 year old amphitheatre that once saw gladiators fight to the death and Christians thrown to the lions, but now, it is just a venue for classical music festivals.

We continued travelling through Tunisia when we met some Berber people who invited us to see their unique lifestyle and troglodyte homes cut into the hillsides. This is where they filmed some of the most well-remembered scenes from the Star Wars movies.

After that we headed for the desert – bought some traditional camel wearing clothes, and hired a few camels.

Siovhinn - Moorish cafe

Now while we were riding our camels through the desert a Nomad rides up to us and invites me to (as he put it) get of my uncomfortable camel and join him on his much faster steed – and he would show me the real desert. Needless to say as flattered as I was that he chose me, I turned him down. Who knows where I would have ended up!

Our journey continued from there, we went to see the evaporated Chott el Djerid Salt Lakes as the sun was rising from behind the mountains. Then on to the oasis at Tozeur, which happens to be an astonishing 200,000 date palms fed by hundreds of natural springs in the middle of the desert. We hired a trap and cart and rode around the oasis eating sweet dates.

Later Joe felt like crossing the desert in a 4×4 and seeing the Atlas Mountains and so we did. We raced over sand dunes, it was a little terrifying but also exhilarating. We left the 4 x 4 to climb to a vantage point in the Atlas Mountains with breathtaking views of Tunisia to the east and Algeria to the west, and to cool off we came across a mountain waterfall which of course we plunged right into. Very refreshing and even though temperatures were something like 52 degrees C in the shade, the waterfall was crisp and cool.

To top it all we had made a friend with a local who got us into the sacred heart of the historic fortified town of Kairouan in time to hear the haunting call of the Imam from the ancient and beautiful Great Mosque. So after the couple of busy sightseeing days we went back to our hotel and chilled out for a few more days before we flew back to Northern Ireland.

I have to say this trip is without a doubt one of my top favourites.

Be my Valentine – Beautiful Scotland

The one and only time we did not take our girls with us on holiday, was when Joe took me away for a romantic Valentine’s weekend to Scotland. It was so beautiful; we stayed in this manor house that had been converted into an exclusive retreat. When we arrived we were shown to our room. If you could call it a room – it was the size of a tennis court: lounge – bar – bedroom with an extra large king size bed, oh and the bath was like a small swimming pool. Ok maybe I’m exaggerating a little, but it was huge, and the water pressure was amazing – it took three minutes to fill. Well, enough about that.

So when we arrived it started to snow, and by the morning everything was white. They had converted the outhouses into an art gallery and a country shop, which we took full advantage of. Over the course of the weekend we drove up to Edinburgh. We explored the castle and sights around the area and had an incredibly romantic Valentine.

I found Scotland to be beautiful, with lots of friendly people always ready for a chat. Even leaving Scotland you are made to feel so welcome and you want to go back and relive that time. As all the signs say on leaving any town in Scotland – Haste Ye Back!

Home of the Prickly Pear… Sicily

Rooftop Mount Etna

The first time I went to Sicily, I fell in love. The sun and heat were so much like home – Zimbabwe. We caught the fastest catamaran in the world, it sails between Malta and Sicily. It moves so fast across the water that it has an alarm that sounds every time it tips too far left or right. The alarm went off most of the trip, but I suppose it does not matter that much because it is a very fast enjoyable trip.

Climbing Mount Etna

When we arrived, we headed for Mount Etna which, thank goodness she was having a nap, so we got to climb Etna – two days later she blew her top, now that would have been a great sight to see.

It was something else to see just the roof tops of houses sticking out of the cooled lava. We learned that every time Etna blows her top they rebuild the road and houses on top of the last lot. Can you imagine 3 000 years from now – if our world is still around – when they discover layers of buried houses and roads - Maybe they will think of us as being very patient or very stupid people – who knows.

Sicily is in a realm of its own, you can only fall in love with it. Seeing as we ended up moving to Sicily for a short while, I will definitely write more about it at a later date. We had some weird adventures there.

We always seem to be moving – it’s just that nothing compares to Zimbabwe, we are always looking for that perfect place we call home.

Knights of Malta…

Siovhinn and Dolphin

Where the Knights of Malta lived and still live today. I did meet a real Knight of Malta some years later in Sicily. He turned out to be a real knight in shining armour. But that is another story.

Malta was a beautiful place, being so small we were able to see the whole island in three weeks. We did absolutely everything one can do in three weeks. We learnt a little bit of Arabic, because that is what most people speak there (as well as Italian, French, English, Spanish, German… you name it!). We travelled to all the little towns and villages.

Valletta was the city of cats, they are everywhere and everyone takes care of them, really cool. It was a bit like the movie Cats and Dogs. You could just imagine that just before we walked around the corner all these cats were having some kind of meeting and then they tried to act normal when we appeared. Oh, and every road does lead to Valletta. Every time we got lost we ended up in Valletta and then spent an hour trying to find our way out.

We swam with dolphins, one on one. We went to the movie set, where they made the movie with Robin Williams – Popeye. That is where I went over on my ankle and tore all the ligaments in my foot – spent an afternoon waiting to be seen in the local hospital, gave up, went to a chemist, bought a walking stick, some bandages and lots of pain killers and continued with my holiday – nothing was going to stop me. I swam in the blue lagoon. We went snorkelling in the caves that are dotted all around Malta, oh and we kayaked around part of the Island. Sailed on a real galleon, which took us out at night for a party, anchored out in the Mediterranean and we all jumped in and swam – it was so much fun (but a bit scary, as there had recently been great white sharks caught off the coast of Malta). Sailed around Malta in a glass-bottomed boat, so we could look at a sunken ship and sea life and so much more we did. Again, more stories for more blogs but another time maybe.

Light up the night – Eiffel Tower

Eiffel Tower

Originally uploaded by siovhinn

In November we went to a French / Scottish wedding just outside Paris. (Best wedding ever Joe and Virginie – Thank you) Anyway, while we were there on the night before the wedding we decided to drive into Paris and see the Eiffel Tower.

As I was driving toward it, the traffic lights turned red and just at the same moment the Eiffel Tower started to twinkle. So I grabbed my camera and took this photo. I did not think it would turn out so well, but it did.

Keep Smiling!

Freezing my ass off in Northern Ireland…

Ahh… Northern Ireland, very cold, very wet, very grey, but on the occasion that the sun does come out to show its face, (not its heat, I might add) it could be beautiful. We lived in Northern Ireland for a good few years. But being from Africa and loving the sunshine, we became very homesick and needed to visit the sunshine every now and then (but not before we had explored Northern Ireland).

I have some very good memories of different people I met there and who extended the hand of kindness and helpfulness more than once. One of those heart-warming encounters came in the form of a bus conductor. It was a very cold, wet, blustery winter’s day just before Christmas. I had just finished my Christmas shopping and was laden down with shopping bags, making my way back to the office. But the shopping was so heavy that I had to keep stopping every few steps and I was getting soaked to the bone… When out of nowhere this man appeared and offered to carry some of my bags.

I asked if he was sure and thanked him. He then proceeded to ask where I was going, so I told him I was trying to make it back to the bus before it left and I hoped I had not missed it. If I had I would have to call a cab. He then pulled out his radio and spoke to the bus driver to tell him to wait, but he had already left. This kind old man told me not to worry, to get onto the empty bus in front of us, and that he would be back shortly. He helped me put my shopping in the bus and then disappeared. When he came back about five minutes later, he asked where I was going. I told him the address and he said no problem. He started the bus and drove me – the only person on the bus – to my office door. He carried my shopping into the office for me while he left the bus sitting in the middle of the road. He then said “Merry Christmas” and departed. I had quite a few experiences like that in Northern Ireland, so I have to say it wasn’t all bad, apart from the lack of sunshine.

And so our adventures (holidays) in hot places began.