An Irishman’s heart is nothing but his imagination
I’ve put up lots of blog posts involving pictures lately. Sometimes a picture says a thousand words, especially when MS fatigue and asthma are a pain in the proverbial bum. Rugby is keeping me company this afternoon, and seeing Ireland play Argentina in Dublin on a Flemish television screen is making me yearn for home again. Home is Dublin, in a tiny suburb village close to the County Dublin and Meath border. It has been for the last 10 years now and it was a seamless integration and assimilation into Irish culture and society, and I’m so proud of the way Irish people have welcomed me into their midst without ever questioning my motives for being there. Please forgive me if I sound rather distasteful, awful or just plain ridiculous.…
Dogs: miracles with paws
If a dog will not come to you after having looked you in the face, you should go home and examine your conscience. (Woodrow Wilson) It’s cold. Very cold. It’s so cold my toes are curling upwards; my fingers are going inwards, and my eyelashes are curling sideways. That’s how cold it is. What feels warm is looking at my mum’s dogs, a female Beagle lying next to my feet, and as always, oblivious to the world. The other, a Cavoodle, the red-haired, funny, tiny one is helping me write this post by sitting on the side of my laptop. With his bum on the numerical keys. Thank god for antibacterial wipes. For now, I tolerate his dominance of my laptop. He’s testing my resolve. I’m testing his. It can’t…
Stunning bookstore in Dublin!
Yesterday, after walking past Cathach Books (now Ulysses Rare Books) in Duke Street to go to my favourite bookstore in Dublin (Hodges Figgis) in Duke Street, my eyes caught a gem of another bookstore. Cathach Books sells first editions of James Joyce, William Butler Yeats, Oscar Wilde, Samuel Beckett and so many more fantastic Irish authors. In the window display, the first edition of Ulysses by James Joyce sells at €45000 (approximately $57323,47 or £36099) and if I would ever win the lottery, I would definitely go to the store to buy some of its gems! Now Cathach Books is my favourite bookstore, followed closely of course by Hodges Figgis!
Attacking disabilities…
© Willeke Van Eeckhoutte and Ireland, Multiple Sclerosis & Me, 2011-2012. Unauthorised use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Willeke Van Eeckhoutte and Ireland, Multiple Sclerosis & Me with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.
The dark underbelly of Ireland’s society (part 3)
This is part 3, and hopefully the last part, in what I consider my idea of what is wrong in Ireland’s society today. There is old and new heartache in its consumer culture of drugs, alcohol and having a great time. Alcohol is used and abused, but new ways of having fun have emerged with drugs like heroin, cocaine, meth and marijuana.
Health is not valued until sickness comes
Sadly my attempt to post daily has not had much success so far. Blame the old trigeminal nerve pains in my face and/or occipital pains behind my eyes. That said, I continue reading because the book I’m in love with right now is regarding psychology, good old Dr. Sigmund Freud and philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche. It’s hard to put the book down but at times I need to be mindful of the aches and pains so they don’t get any worse. And that means that I am not blogging as much as I want to. Like Albert Schweitzer once said: “Serious illness doesn’t bother me for long because I am too inhospitable a host.” I am also because life is bigger than my neurological illness, and life will always be much…
Be awesome! Be a book nut!
“In a good bookroom you feel in some mysterious way that you are absorbing the wisdom contained in all the books through your skin, without even opening them.” Mark Twain “There are worse crimes than burning books. One of them is not reading them.” Joseph Brodsky “If you have a garden and a library, you have everything you need.” Marcus Tullius Cicero “Books are the plane, and the train, and the road. They are the destination, and the journey. They are home.” Anna Quindlen © Willeke Van Eeckhoutte and Ireland, Multiple Sclerosis & Me, 2011-2013. Unauthorised use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Willeke Van…
