More Ireland

Then of course there are castles in Ireland, old ruined castles.
Mostly nameless to me. I can't remember the name of this one, but I do remember where it is. It is on the west shore of northern Ireland South/ South West of Bushmill and the Giant's Causeway.
The view is the view from its South facing windows.

In a way it seems unfair that I should be able to go and see those castles which have no special significance to me when quite a few people who are into Celtic history may have heard about them and may be dreaming of getting to see them.


For a brief geology "moment" here I will say that the cliffs are chalk and that the basalt of the Giant's Causeway actually cuts through those chalks a few tens of kilometres north of that spot.

I guess in a way many people get to see the Giant's Causeway not really caring, not having dreamt about it for a long time.

Life is not fair....nothing new here!

Ireland: Marble Arch Caves

We also went to Marble Arch Caves that Rob had on his list of "To Do".
When we arrived the parking lot was near empty because it was closed. But before we even had a chance to ask, the staff who was in the closed visitor center came out and asked if we wanted to go and see it anyway. That's how friendly people were!
It was beautiful in there.
I got totally turned around and at one point I had to realize that if we had had to go out on our own I would have gone completely the wrong way...I cannot be trusted with direction when I am inside....Inside a cave, inside a mall, inside just does not lend itself to orientation from my point of view.

Knowth and Newgrange

I went to Ireland originally to see the Giant's Causeway and visit with Rob in Dublin. The rest was really of no consequence to me. I found once I got there that I was totally unwilling to find out about the struggle between North and South Ireland. I had enough of struggles, of people hating each other, of violence etc... of old quarrels rooted in stuff that happen when people alive today weren't even born...I didn't want to hear a thing about it.
I was ranting and raving about how people could go and kill each other, just don't expect me to admire them and pay my respects or even acknowledge that they existed. Poor Rob was trapped in the car with me having to listen to that!!!!
The road trip to Northern Ireland to see the Giant's Causeway was totally unplanned.
Along the way though we did see a sign for some Irish possibly -standing-rock-type-of-thing...this is how much I knew about it!!! The first one was Knowth. We got there late and there one one more tour going that we could catch and would allow us to see both Knowth and Newgrange. As in Ghardaia, you have to have a guide..first I though, bummer there is going to be a group, we won't be able to see anything, but there was only one other guy so the three of us pretty much had a private tour of Knowth.

I'll admit there is something about the all Celtic thing that I don't like. It is so fashionable, the music, the this, the that...makes me gag..Everybody is a Celt, etc etc.
I'm a Gypsy by blood..I am just not Celtic!!! And I was totally unprepared, but it was nice to have a break from driving and I knew that I had liked Stone Henge. I was so "yeah, yeah, let's go for a walk" that I didn't even have my camera with me!!

After all this bad attitude, it turned out that I was really impressed with Knowth. Mostly I was really impressed by the old carving on the stones around the main tomb. Would you believe it but those were carved at about the same time than the rock carvings/paintings I want to go and see in Djanet (Algeria)!!!
I guess reproductions of Celtic art do nothing for me, but the original stuff...the actual stuff, on the rocks, right there, THAT I really like.

The second tour was to see Newgrange, there there was a group, but by then I was ready to ignore them to see the next megalithic tomb...and the art!!

I didn't like the outside as much probably because they had "restored" the front to look like what it MIGHT have been. But the inside was great. We couldn't go into Knowth, so it was great to go inside Newgrange.

Nice places both! Well worth the trip even for a seriously grumpy freak like me.

Just don't ask me how to get there!
Rent a car in Dublin, aim towards the Giant's Causeway in a way that allows you to avoid Belfast, when you see a sign for old celtic stuff, turn off.....That's pretty much the way it went for me!

And Ireland

It is getting late and I'll show some of what I saw in Ireland tomorrow.
But here is an "appetizer".

Ireland was great! The air is humid and cool and "bracing", the people are friendly and it is beautiful.
Of course it helps if you have a great "guide".
This is the Giant Causeway a geological temple as well as one the "top 1000 places you have to visit before you die"...I think it is even in the book titled something like that I have at home (just in case I need more ideas of where to go!!!!).

The graffiti made me think of it

The king of the birds

by The Brothers Grimm
German Household Tales

One day the birds took it into their heads that they would like a master, and that one of their number must be chosen king. A meeting of all the birds was called, and on a beautiful May morning they assembled from woods and fields and meadows. The eagle, the robin, the bluebird, the owl, the lark, the sparrow were all there. The cuckoo came, and the lapwing, and so did all the other birds, too numerous to mention. There also came a very little bird that had no name at all.

There was great confusion and noise. There was piping, hissing, chattering and clacking, and finally it was decided that the bird that could fly the highest should be king.

The signal was given and all the birds flew in a great flock into the air. There was a loud rustling and whirring and beating of wings. The air was full of dust, and it seemed as if a black cloud were floating over the field.

The little birds soon grew tired and fell back quickly to earth. The larger ones held out longer, and flew higher and higher, but the eagle flew highest of any. He rose, and rose, until he seemed to be flying straight into the sun.

The other birds gave out and one by one they fell back to earth - and when the eagle saw this he thought, "What is the use of flying any higher? It is settled - I am king!"

Then the birds below called in one voice, "Come back, come back! You must be our king! No one can fly as high as you."

"Except me!" cried a shrill, shrill voice, and the little bird without a name rose from the eagle's back, where he had lain hidden in the feathers, and he flew into the air. Higher and higher he mounted till he was lost to sight, then, folding his wings together, he sank to earth crying shrilly, "I am king! I am king!"

"You, our king!" the birds cried in anger. "you have done this by trickery and cunning. We will not have you to reign over us."

Then the birds gathered together again and made another condition, that he should be king who could go the deepest into the earth.

How the goose wallowed in the sand, and the duck strove to dig a hole! All the other birds, too, tried to hide themselves in the ground. The little bird without a name found a mouse's hole, and creeping in cried -

"I am king! I am king!"

"You, our king!" all the birds cried again, more angrily than before. "Do you think that we would reward your cunning in this way? No, no! You shall stay in the earth till you die of hunger!"

So they shut up the little bird in the mouse's hole, and bade the owl watch him carefully night and day. Then all the birds went home to bed, for they were very tired - but the owl found it lonely and wearisome sitting alone staring at the mouse's hole.

"I can close one eye and watch with the other," he thought. So he closed one eye and stared steadfastly with the other - but before he knew it he forgot to keep that one open, and both eyes were fast asleep.

Then the little bird without a name peeped out, and when he saw Master Owl's two eyes tight shut, he slipped from the hole and flew away.

From this time on the owl has not dared to show himself by day lest the birds should pull him to pieces. He flies about only at night-time, hating and pursuing the mouse for having made the hole into which the little bird crept.

And the little bird also keeps out of sight, for he fears lest the other birds should punish him for his cunning. He hides in the hedges, and when he thinks himself quite safe, he sings out, "I am king! I am king!"

And the other birds in mockery call out, "Yes, yes, the hedge-king! the hedge-king!"

The old Gardhaia

The thing about Gardhaia is of course that it is a very traditional town because it stayed isolated and protected from the modern world for a long time.


Donkeys are still the main transport inside the old part of the city since cars will not fit in the old narrow streets. In fact there is only one street large enough to allow cars onto the main market place.





I really like the atmosphere of the market place.
Yes, people did stare at me, but they are not unused to tourists so they stared a little but not in a way that felt uncomfortable to me.

I spent quite a bit of time at the market place, in the open space and under the arcades looking in the stores around it. I probably spent an entire morning in the carpet store talking, choosing carpets and jewelery and generally just sitting around.
At one point two women came in and told the store owner that as far as they knew Christians could behave as they please because they had neither hell nor heaven in their religion...Now I am not religious, but I know that this is not true. So sitting on a pile of carpets I pretended to be Christian and explain that this was not the case that "we" believed that only those who behave well would go to heaven. It was a revelation to the people in the store.




I don't like having my picture taken, so I don't often take picture of people, but in Gardhaia it was even more the case.
Once I asked some old guys if I could take their pictures and they refused, making me even more reluctant to take pictures of people after this.
So here is a view, totally skewed, of one of the market street. You have to imagine below it a narrow street full of people buying vegetables and meat and all that stuff.

I know it is impossible.

One day I'll take more pictures of people.

People are all the same

People are people regardless of where you are and even in Gardhaia, such a controlled city, you see some graffiti.
Not very many in the old town.
In the newer part of town I saw a few about football but these two I saw in the old town.
This one of the letter Tamasheck alphabet (the language of the Berbers) and this can be taken as a somewhat political statement of freedom, and it is also on their the Berber flag...
J. tells me that a Berber on her rig showed her how indeed it looks like two links of a chain which have been cut..hence freedom.






The other graffiti, totally different I absolutely LOVE. I reminds me of Chagall, and I love Chagall's work.

It is probably supposed to be a rooster but doesn't it look like the king of birds?
I love it.

From Hassi Messaoud to Gardhaia

I am writing this completely out of sequence.
On the 30 some kilometres between Hassi Messaoud and Gardhaia we mostly crossed the desert, two small towns and the desert.
in the middle of the flat desert you get this road sign at regular intervals and this is because the camels do come on the road...you have to wonder why in this big old desert they would end up on the road!















I even saw a bloated dead camel on the side of the road....sorry no picture!

More about my trip to Gardhaia

I just want to show a couple more things about Gardhaia. I am thinking about it because today JVS came for lunch and asked me about it.

The woman in the photo is typical of women of Gardhaia, mozabite women, this is the only way you see then outside. Now in Gardhaia you can actually see a few women who are not mozabite and cover their hair and wear the face veil, but do not cover themselves entirely apart from one eye.
It was really weird to make eye contact with the mozabite women. Like all human beings they were curious to look at a foreigner in their town, but they really are not suppose to stare. They did stare though.



This was just a normal little boy in the street.





Some old part of towns were restricted and you could only enter them accompanied by a guide. To make sure that some part of the town stayed private, to make sure that people did not take picture of the covered women, and to make sure that nobody wandered the street in shorts or anything like this.








This is one of the guides. He was quite funny but unfortunately not very informative. But there was no choice. He was the only guide to be had for this part of town.

All in a row

In the previous photo (open view to the East) you can see how there are big long open valleys. From the air you can see that the dunes create a pattern.


Apart from being able to see long open valleys you really do not get this sense of organization on the ground..at least I don't.

Even the valleys don't seem to go on for ever. The ground is uneven enough to block the view that would go on for ever. You can also see in the photos that some smaller ridges cut them across. On the ground those are tall enough to give the impression that you are in a "basin" more than in a mile long "valley".

open view to the east

This is pretty much looking South (east to the left, West to the right) you can see why I have pictures of sunrise.
For scale the derrick is roughly 50m tall (160")

We get great sunrises this time of year

All the same day...and in order from top (first) to bottom.

more BBC world news

I like reading the BBC world news. They have news - and we all know that news is never good news- but also they have a Science and Nature section and they often good photos...You've seen me use them regularly.

Today in a little series of 10 or so photos they have a feature on sea live. there is the photo of this "winged snail" 10mm long. So here you go while kids are making snow angels in Canada (surely they are) some people take photos of sea angles...and it turns out that they are snails....I can see though that this may be a problem when you try to see how many of them you can put on the head of a pin!
This guy also happens to have a nice name which for an angle seems only fair. It is called Cavolinia uncinata.



The other photo I want to post is not really for the photo itself for as an excuse to post a number: the hottest water temperature ever recorded is at a mid Atlantic ridge. This vent in hte photo releases water of 407 degrees C! and no boiling...imagine the pressure there must be down there...I guess if I was on top of my stuff I would be able to calculate the minimal water depth for this to happen without boiling...but I am not ... and they didn't say anything about depth.

No need to worry

From BBC world news:
=================

Algeria bomb targets oil workers

A roadside bomb targets a bus in Algeria, killing one man and injuring nine others, all staff of a US firm.

=================


On the odd that somebody actually saw the news about Algeria, I want to say right away.
The bombing in Algeria was in the North, I am in the south. If something was to happen in the south it would be very very very unlikely to be in the middle of the desert when they can just go to Hassi Messaoud (a town in hte desert that only exist because of the oil industry) and find a lot of expats (foreign workers) all huddled up together.
When I go on holidays it will be in Djanet...again in the south and I will not be a oil worker, I will be a tourist...tourists are not targeted. I NEVER EVER wear anything that shows my relation to oil work when I am on holidays...the way I see it I spend enough time at work I don't have to think about it when I am not there, and "No" I find no glory or pride in wearing my job on holidays or on the plane going home or going to work.

All is fine here!

the sand

This time the rig is pretty much on top of a very very big dune (flattened at the top by hours of bulldozer work to make a space for us).
Two new things in the sand around us. At least one spot is "singing" sand. When you walk on it (at least during the warm part of the day, I haven't tried when it is cold) the sand makes a double sounds, sort of like a "booom, booom" for each step...hard to describe...To be clear, this is not a subtle little thing between sound and vibration, It is a loud sound. Kind of cool!

AND, I found so me very small snail shells in the sands...quite a few of them. I have no idea if they hard last springs generation of some local snails, or if they are quaternary/tertiary or what ever! I don't know enough about snails to know if they are at all indicative of environment. I considered for a split second trying to find somebody who does research in this type of things, but then again I cannot do this without asking the petroleum company and I don't even want to get started with that...Shame though. For all I know maybe somebody would be thrilled to have them.

Back at work

Well I actually managed to get up from my plane sit after 9 hours, carry my heavy bag to the bus, then up to the hotel, etc, etc, etc, back on another plane (only three hours this time) and stand up again, thanks to the wonder to modern drugs and a weird velcro belt that Steph and Pat lend me...the belt is actually designed for people like me who need a little extra help standing up the right way...this thing prevents me from getting stuck quickly into a very painful position... but I still had to take "drugs"!

I am in Algeria, back in the Sahara and once again I was surprised to see how unless the dunes are right in front of me I really do not really remember how beautiful they are...maybe the start of Alzheimer, LOL!





I left home on the 18th, it is the 23rd today and my sleep pattern is still screwed up. Last "night" I slept from 5:00pm to 11:30pm (local time) which in Canadian time would make it from 9:00am to 3:30pm...even this way it doesn't make any sense! Either way I have no way to know at what time of day I will have to start really paying attention to my critical casing point so I see no need to try to adapt myself to day time anywhere on the planet...at least not until the end of the well.

colourful pain

Here is the thing, I can usually describe pain with a colour and sometimes either with a pattern or with a texture.

These days of course pain in on my mind because of my back. Earlier this week my back was so painful that the pain was changing the way I perceived the luminosity of colours around me.

Since I arrived in Calgary I went to the massage therapist 4 times for my back and she had it until I decided to shovel snow!!!
One of the thing she does during massage brings up this weird pain which has a weird colour - pink...I'd never had a pink pain- ....and a shape - I never had shape associated with pain before!

Tomorrow I thing I will go and buy some painkillers for the 9 hours in the plane. I don't like to take painkillers but in this case I will make an exception. I have to be able to get out of the plane at the end, grab my bag, take the bus from Heathrow to Gatwick etc etc etc....

Right now I have a yellow pain...Yellow I one of my favourite colour, and pink is one of my least favourite, but right now I would switch from a yellow to a pink pain without a second of hesitation.

Last night in Calgary

It is Friday night nearly 10:00pm. I am leaving tomorrow early afternoon. I am not packed. I need to absolutely write and send my resume BEFORE I go, and I just went to pick up "something" the office wanted me to take to Algeria. This "something" turned out to be 4 big folders!!!
Honestly it is too heavy a package to ask somebody to carry in addition to their personal gears!
They have absolutely no sense!
Jeeze, I am grumpy about work these days!

On the plus side this is my last well in Algeria.

I haven't blogged in a long time...the thing is really nothing has happened. I basically have been home struggling with a sore back on and off, painting part of the house (only a little bit) and reading, reading reading reading.
Mostly I read "cozies"murder mysteries with no violence...basically old british ladies finding bodies etc etc....
Among all this crap I did read one interesting book "the seven daughters of Eve" by Bryan Sykes, a book about the mitonchondrial ancestry of humans. It was actually a pretty good book, but the author comes across as an arrogant scientist.

Calgary has been cold...sort of...in the -10C to +5C range, icy and miserable.

I am supposed to go back to work on the 18th...I can't say that I am looking forward to it. I hear that at night it is getting down to +5C in Algeria right now...brrrrrrrrrrr!