Nicola Keegan

Yes, this is my poor hand..

I was cooking dinner last night, and while the baby carrots where roasting in the oven, I started to prepare a lovely fresh salad with avocados. All went well until one of the stones I was spearing out turned out to be really soft, and OUCH, the next thing I knew I was bleeding like mad.

Now anyone who knows me will know that I DON’T do blood, guts, ER, needles, doctors etc etc AT ALL. So this was my absolutely worst nightmare. Donal was outside doing something with the Golf, and didn’t have his phone on him. Fortunately he wasn’t too long coming in, and was greeted with the sight of me with my hand under the tap, almost fainting into the sink!

We went to the MiDoc (out of hours doctor), and the South African doctor took a look, and said he wanted to send me to the A&E as a tendon was exposed and he wanted it checked out. Fortunately it didn’t seem severed, and I had feeling and movement in my finger. Could have been a lot worse! He anaesthetised my finger so that they could pull off my rings & bandaged me up.

Off we went to Ballinasloe (eating chocolate digestives on the way as we never did get our dinner!), and I have to have it bandaged again as it was still bleeding a lot.  I was also given a tetanus injection just in case.

A few hours later… we saw the doc, and he cleaned me up (it was freaky seeing blood all over my hand & all the yucky bandages and paper being taken away), and gave me 3 stitches. Throughout this I managed not to faint – just screwed up my eyes closed, held my breath and told them not to tell me anything about it!! I just didn’t want to know! He also gave me some antibiotics as I had used my knife for meat in the past.

So far it’s not too sore, just a bit throbby.  I can’t open out my finger fully as yet as I am afraid of pulling the stitches. They should be taken out on Friday.

So that’s a very long & detailed explanation of our Sunday evening! We eventually made it home at 12:30am and had some toast & brandy  and went to bed!!!

All sympathy welcome

Share/Bookmark

Here are a few more photos from our little trip to Kerry that were on my phone!!

Share/Bookmark

On Saturday night, I decided to try a variation on my chocolate mousse.  I was originally hoping to buy some chocolate pudding to use, but Tesco Ireland doesn’t ever  seem to stock any.

So, I put some chocolate cake/sponge in the bottom of each individual serving dish.  Then I drained a tin of black cherries in syrup, and poured the syrup over the sponge.  Then I put some of the cherries in each of the bowls, on top of the cake.  Next, I made a chocolate mousse using a mixture of dark and milk chocolate, butter and egg yolks, and folded in the whipped egg whites.  A few dollops of the mousse went into each bowl, topped with a dollop of whipped cream, a cherry and some dark chocolate shavings. Voila!

Share/Bookmark

In recent months, rugby has become more and more popular around here! It may have a lot to do with the World Cup and the Six Nations.. Especially as Ireland did so well.

Anyway, I always had the impression that rugby was a fairly rough sport, and it looked like all the players did was huddle up in weird little groups and jump on each other.  However, after learning more about the game, I have begun to enjoy watching rugby much more than soccer!  There are a lot of rules, but the more you understand them, the more the game makes sense.  I have also noticed in professional rugby that the players are WAY more respectful of each other and the referee than in soccer.  For example, when a player is going to have a go at kicking a penalty over the bar, in general, the crowd and the other players go quiet to allow the player to concentrate  - there is no jeering or booing.  One of the rules  regulates the way a player is allowed to tackle – they are not allowed to tackle too high so that there is less risk of injury.  

Our “Lads” have been learning to play over the past months, and get together now and again for a match.  Up until now, the “Greens” (Our team!!) have given the “Blues” a beating in all but one match (I think!).  Unfortunately, the score on Saturday in Birr was Greens 5… Blues 19.  However fun was had by (nearly) all!

Here are some of the photos from Saturday.

The photos are pretty unclear and poor quality at the moment, but I am working at trying to upload some better and clearer versions without the server telling me I have exceeded the upload limits!!

Share/Bookmark

Don’t you just get the greatest feeling of satisfaction when you have been trying to fix something for ages, and you finally do it?!

An earlier post referred to a problem I was having with NextGen Gallery with displaying the albums – they were coming up as a long list rather than going accross the page.

I think that the problem lay in not understanding how “Galleries” & “Albums” relate to each other using NextGen.  I had only put one “Gallery” in each “Album”.  When I changed that today to putting a few “Galleries” into each “Album”, I noticed that they were displaying accross the page more or less how I wanted them!

Yipeeee…. One problem down, only a zillion to go

I am currently working on the “Squished Product Thumbnail” problem in my shop, and the “Displaying Very Bad Quality Images In My Photo Gallery” problem.

Share/Bookmark

I have to admit that I love watching “American Idol”, “X-Factor” and the like.

American Idol Season 8 is in progress.. who do you think should win?!

 Loading ...

Share/Bookmark

I posted earlier about a photo for this month’s photography competition with the theme “Juxtaposition”. So here is how I did..
I came 17th out of 84! I am very pleased with that really
I am 36th out of 84 overall with 2 months more to go.
Next month’s theme is “The Decisive Moment”. I am thinking there will be a good few wedding photos entered, so I would like to come up with something more original. Someone about to bungy jump off a cliff perhaps??? Any volunteers?!

Share/Bookmark

I am NOT normally a huge fan of “cutie-cutie-let’s-put-the-baby-in-a-funny-hat-or-make-a-calendar-of-babies-wearing-vegetables” type photos..

But these are just great!!!

By photographer Tracy Raver

Share/Bookmark

I have to admit that occasionally, I get addicted to these “Time-Management” games that you can download.  I seem to go through phases where I play one of them for a while until I get a bit fed up, and then don’t play anything for ages and ages.

One of them I enjoyed (for work-related-research-purposes.. of course!!) was “Chocolatier – Secret Ingredients”. 

The aim of the game is to save Baumeister Confections and become a Master Chocolatier.  You have to travel around the world purchasing ingredients at the best possible price.  You then take the ingredients to your factories, and manufacture the chocolates and then sell them for the best possible profit.  The ingredients prices, and the selling prices of the chocolates depend on the current seasons and markets. As you travel around, you also collect and make up new recipes that sell for higher prices.

You can play the game for free for an hour (to get you addicted!), and then you can purchase the game if you wish.

Have fun

Share/Bookmark

Rummaging through my old files in search of an entry of this month’s “Photographer of the Year” competition, I came across this photo from our visit a few years ago to the “Oceanographic Museum of Monaco“.

The theme for the month had me stumped – “Juxtaposition”.  I found out that it didn’t actually mean exactly what I thought it meant! So the idea is to have things side by side to demonstrate a contrast or similarity between the items. I thought that this photo shows a contrast in texture and shape, but a similarity in colour and tone. 

I don’t really have high hopes of winning this competition – but it’s fun to enter and to vote on other people’s entries each month – its amazing how many interpretations of a theme there can be! So far I am about half way down the table – not great but not too bad! I am happy enough with that!!!

What do you think? Do you have any photos that wold fit the theme of “Juxtaposition”?

Share/Bookmark