We got a new kitten shortly before Christmas.............

Ting Ting......

I put this up with some trepidation because we will shortly be receiving a visit from Martin and Sile before they return to Thezan and some of you will know that M. Dwyer has a somewhat ambivalent, even hostile, attitude towards cats...

But I thought he might prefer to be forewarned?......

There were unusual, unexpected and, some of them, unwelcome aspects to the Ballyduff Christmas this year.

In order to spare the blushes of those involved or responsible, I can only say that the first of these was that on Christmas morning we found ourselves in need of a turkey.
I will go just so far as to say that the matter of the responsibility for this circumstance became a hotly disputed matter.

But anyway, here we were late Christmas morning with no turkey and half the family en route from Galway to Ballyduff in full anticipation of the seasonal feast.

Re-calibration time!

I figured that the stuffings - which had been prepared the previous evening - could be used to stuff peppers instead of turkeys and they could accompany the traditional ham and, with a few more 'tweaks' we would still achieve a 'festive table'.

But more modern heads went to work and our predicament was 'tweeted'.
And an early response suggested that hotels would likely be in possession of surplus turkey.
And, indeed, a few phone calls later, a turkey crown had been located at a local hotel and it was collected by the family en route from Galway.

Thus we are all be deeply indebted and very grateful to Pius Phelan, proprietor of The Kilford Arms on John Street in Kilkenny, not just because he solved our problem but he also it gave it to us as a gift. - Thank you, Pius, you were truly our saviour!

On its arrival I was confronted - I was the designated chef this year - with six kilograms of boneless turkey breast!
This lead to much discussion and some wondered whether, on account of its size, it was not, perhaps, ostrich or even dodo rather than turkey.

But, anyway, its flesh was fresh, sweet and plentiful!

I decided to separate the breasts and 'butterfly' one to enable me to stuff and roll it - as one would a lamb's leg - and this we did. The other, I simply bound tight and, with no more than a sprinkling of thyme, pepper and salt, cooked it alongside its 'stuffed' companion.

It worked-out well and the day was saved.

But, along the way, there were other discoveries, events and dramas that made-up our Christmas pageant.

And, now I come to think about it, they may all have been caused by the unseasonable warmth.

First, Sue discovered a bat hanging on the back of a door.
Its entry point could only have been via the roof window in the upstairs bathroom which is always kept open a chink and may thus have reminded it of an eave - but, the point is, that the creature plainly felt a wakeful urge when its species is usually dormant.

And then there were loud noises from the same upstairs, bathroom when Hannah was stung by a semi-comatose wasp that was lurking in the cloth she lifted to clean the bathroom for the visitors.

And finally, as I cooked, I was kept company by a butterfly - who fluttered about in the hot kitchen as though it was August - having, I presume, been awakened by temperatures that reminded it of April not December.

But, sadly, it did not survive the night.

I've apologised and made my excuses, more than once, for having been missing, or gone silent, or having neglected - or whatever - these pages.

And I've been absent again during November and December but this time I make no apology because, not only have I been busy, very busy, which in these times is a cause for celebration rather than apology but also, as I mentioned in... The next outing... of 01.11.11... the very nature of this site has been under scrutiny, examination and, as a consequence, reconstruction.

Following my decision to 'come out from under my stone' by mounting the exhibitions I decided that I should continue to 'put myself about a bit' with the aim of capturing my share of any work that is out there. And to this end I was offered and, unusually I fear, I decided to accept some advice as how best to set about this goal.

It was Naoise's great friend Sinead Ryan of Presence Marketing who offered to hold my hand and lead me along the path to greater and finely focused exposure.
And this is ongoing work - interrupted first by the busy spell before Christmas and then by the holiday itself.

But this effort will resume, with purpose and vigour, as soon as normal life resumes in the new year.

First, the new website will go live and then, later in January or early February, there will be a 'launch' of the new website and brochure.
The date and location will be well heralded here once they are set.

And, my good news is that I go into the new year with a small order book - a rare and valuable commodity - but I will try not to neglect these pages as a consequence..........

I dropped into Lidel on my way home, at dusk, one evening last week to pick up our supper.

Now, I'm sure you will agree that, unless you are in search for unnecessary artefacts with which to clutter the house, Lidel is not a store which induces you to linger and browse.
So, I'm sure I wasn't in there for more ten minutes and I'm equally sure that when I entered I left a drab evening with a dark sky outside.

So imagine my astonishment when I came out to this...........

I often find myself browsing in the kitchen utensil isles of stores and supermarkets and am, mostly, utterly bemused by the foolish unnecessariness of most of them.
Most often they are to cut or chop something which can be done equally fast, easily and well with a sharp knife.

But I succumb from time to time and, their pointlessness proven, they take up valuable space in cupboards and drawers.

I don't remember how we came by it but, one such item has been knocking about for years and I was on the point of throwing it out when I realised that I could not remember having ever used it. So I resolved to try it out before consigning it to the bin.

Most mornings I make Sue a packed-lunch which, harking back in the years, we refer to as her 'school lunch'.
One morning recently, I decided to make her a gourmet egg-and-tomatoe sandwich.
Now, as part of her birthday feast, Ousmane made exquisite Scotch eggs.
Unlike the usual Scotch egg, with its solid and sulphurous yolk, the yolks in Ousmane's were just barely set.

I resolved that this should be a feature of Sue's sandwich.
Contrary to my declaration above, I have always found it impossible to slice a hard-boiled egg without each slice sticking to the knife and the yolk falling away from its ring of white.

And this is where 'the gadget' came into play.
And I have to declare that it was brilliantly up to its task and enabled the best constructed egg-and-tomatoe sandwich in the entire history of egg-and-tomatoe sandwiches.....

...I'm off to the utensil isle............

Kilkenomics was, by all accounts, an enormous success.

I got to only one gig which was truly, fun, funny, thought provoking and informative.

I was sat (as we would say locally) beside somebody drinking 'a pint'. Having just been refused 'a pint', I enquired of him how he had come into possession of his.

It transpired that he had made the trip from the USA to Kilkenny specifically for 'Klikenomics' and that he had, furthermore, grasped the principle of 'boozenomics' in Ireland on the instant: drink the sponsor's product and you will get it in the quantity of your choice, fast, cheap and in plenty!

Anyway, as he supped his 'pint' and I sipped my, costly, 'bottle' we both engaged with the event.

And this was, without naming names, a discourse between an infant former minister for economic affairs from Argentina, a dizzy, tattooed, Italianate economics prize- fighter from London; an wholly improbable hedge-fund manager from the sub-continent and an ubiquitous and inimitable contributor to the endless debate on Ireland's economic prospects who was described in the Kilkenomics programme notes, as ...'the Adjunct Lecturer in Finance with Trinity College Dublin............ (capitals his - or theirs - but not mine)

Now, I've always assumed that I knew the meaning of the word 'adjunct'.
But during the Q&A session at the end of their presentation, this contributor was asked '...what is an adjunct professor?' I thought he hesitated slightly before he replied '...a visiting professor...'
That was not what I, nor my dictionary (in this instance, Collins), thought the meaning to be.

But it was a clever response worthy of a trader in the art of sophistry........

I was apologising here yesterday for my absence during October: rightly so, or so I considered then.

And, while I was missing, I entertained many a thought - or, perhaps, a thought many a time - that the blog (this blog) is little more than a foolish vanity.

But then, when I made my way back, I found that I had missed a comment on, Libya..... of 23.02.11 , posted on 27 September.

And, to anyone with sufficient interest or observation to do the sums, it would be apparent that the commenter, was making contact after a separation of fifty years!

So maybe, after all, the blog is vindicated - and sod the vanity!

It's show-time - again.

As I mentioned in 'Out from Under My Stone......' 21.08.11 I was invited to re-mount my exhibition - Clive Nunn - My Journey alongside Irish Furniture 1971 - 2011 - as a fringe event, during Wexford Festival Opera, at the Irish Agricultural Museum at Johnstown Castle Estate and it is now more than half way through this outing.

And, as you can see from the poster, I gave a talk on my experiences with vernacular Irish furniture back in the 1970's and 80's.
It went really well and I thoroughly enjoyed giving it. - It is amazing how much good my Ignite experience did me in this regard: the discipline of the fifteen second showing of twenty images afforded me a perfect template from which to expand and create a full, hour long, lecture.

I don't think I have achieved my declared intention of giving this Wexford showing of the exhibition a more commercial focus but, in truth, it wasn't really feasible to transform a relatively, and deliberately, soft-focus retrospective into a major selling opportunity.

But I have been, and am, working towards this commercial goal: not least by having been made to struggle harder and harder - (by my old friend Terry Bannon - he who, as has been mentioned here many a time and has done all the artwork and graphics for every show, exhibition, poster, sign and brochure that I have produced over the past thirty years) - to provide him fewer words and better images for the new brochure that is , when I come to think of it, giving the Wexford exhibition something of a commercial lift!

And now we are working on the website so that visitors who may be seeking information regarding furniture commissions are not confronted, first, by my witterings on hens!

And, inter alia, there has been another 'show' but, as you know, I don't choose to reveal private details here - and certainly not those of others.
I'll go just so far as to say that there was cause to create an event of celebration that brought together twenty-three, out of a possible twenty-six, members of the family.

And it's just over and we are now in recovery - more so from excesses of emotion than from any Bacchanalian aspects of such an occasion.

And so, if I have any followers left, I hope they will forgive me for having failed to put up even one post during October - it was just such a busy month.

But I'm back and, shortly, I hope you will see and approve of changes to this site that will not eclipse the blog but will allow visitors with furniture in mind or, better still, the intent of placing a commission, to get the information they are seeking with greater ease.

Yesterday Sue and I fulfilled a plan that had been set for an age - we cleared out our box room

I won't bore you with too many details but, as I have mentioned here many a time, our house is small so, by inference, you may rightly assume that our box room is small too.

However, by the time we had divested it of its contents, almost every surface in every room of the house had a part of its contents spread across it.

And, by the time we had made the endless decisions that such an activity demands (and causes one to defer), we now have not only a clear and functional box room (and thus a successful outcome to our endeavour) but also a van half full of rubbish and the other half filled with items for next Saturday's flea market in Thomastown, as well as half-car-load of things belonging to Alice that Sue will deliver to her tomorrow.

Also unearthed, and this, if the truth is told, is what prompted me to make such a personal revelation, were two boxes of glass and glasses.

The most of their contents were small, pedestrian, not very old, pub, shorts-glasses for which, I have to confess, I hold an inexplicable fondness.
Something to do with 'in praise of ordinary, rather than exceptional' things maybe?

And I have found them space in our glasses cupboard - where they will, no doubt, rest as unused as they were when wrapped up in newspaper in their box in the box room!

But at he bottom of the second box I found...............

...............this glass vessel.

It was the only item of significant age and quality that I rediscovered and something tells me that I did once know its purpose - but I can't recall it.

And something else tells me that it will not be long before the answer will be supplied or, perhaps my memory refreshed, by a man from Herault.

We were invited to lunch on Sunday, in Wexford, and, at the end of a delightful day of delicious food and brilliant company - which ranged in age from eight months to, well, my age - we were sent home with copious goodies from our hosts' garden......

.......including this bowl of beautiful crab apples.

I must revert at once to M. Dwyer of Thezan to discover how best to convert them to crab apple jelly.

During the course of the day the canine members of the party experimented with gay sex - on their first meeting I should say......

........before relaxing into a companionable exhaustion.

And I, too, found love but....

........although the reciprocation of my adoration was transparent - I was forbidden from slipping her into my pocket.....my little 'Crab Apple'.