The Boys in Tara Cove

Are you still taking pics? Uploaded by M+MD

On the Veranda Uploaded by M+MD

Boys in Blue Uploaded by M+MD

Chilling after Golf Uploaded by M+MD

We boys (next time Sheila?) met up in Tara Cove yesterday for a game of Golf, dinner and some cards. Paul won the Golf, Greg got no Cauliflower; Barney caught some card cheats; Martin came second twice (second sucks!) Kevin showed off his gadgets. The weather was fantastic - it seems that after a summer of rain the summer has finally arrived just when the kids have to go back to school. It's just not fair.

Beach Bums? Uploaded by M+MD

Norah Jones, The Point 23rd August 2007

Read more about Norah, the Band and the Tour on Norah's Website.

Norah and Lee
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We went to see Norah Jones at The Point last night. It was a fantastic concert. She is just as laid back and effortless on the stage as she sounds on the albums. There was a huge crowd at The Point.

Daru plays bass
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We were in row AA (which is really row 27) which was just about as far back as you would want to be in The Point. There were probably 100 plus rows so we had pretty good seats. Of course I had the camera and you can judge for yourself on the quality of the photographs (but I was pretty pleased!) I certainly took enough of them. The Nikon D80 is great – I am just getting used to the settings – and after a few poor results on Auto, I changed the ISO sensitivity and moved to Manual with bracketed shots.I took more than 100 photos.
My complete set of Norah Jones Photos is HERE

Norah
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In my view, there are 2 things about fellow concert-goers that can damage the night out. The first is SINGERS. We had a singer sitting right behind us. She was a real fan, fortunately not a bad voice and she knew all the words and the phrasing, so it blended well on most songs, but the problem is we paid to listen to the concert not the karaoke. Now our singer didn’t overdo it, we probably got three or four lines on four or five songs – but she was enjoying herself.

Norah
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The second is BIG HEADS. Just like Singers, Big Heads can’t help it, other than sitting lower in the seat – but why do that when you have such a great view! Isn’t there always one Big Head in the way? Of course you can usually adjust your own view to compensate, but photography can be trickier. There was a guy last night who must have been 6 foot 7, just  a few rows ahead of me – he just managed to split the stage in two, no real damage but made full stage shots more difficult!

Norah and Adam
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Anyway, towards the end of the concert, I swapped seats with Mags and this improved the perspective significantly. Big Head moved over to one side of the stage and the full stage shots improved. But I discovered that there is another aspects of concert-goer behaviour that can be annoying - at least for others, if not for me, that is CLICKERS. I was clicking away in my new seat, with 3 or 4 bracketed shots for each picture, and on one occasion taking about none shots in succession, during a very quite song, click, click, click, click, click … (you get the picture!), when a voice beside me said “are you going to take pictures all the time” to which I replied, “yes… but at least its better than singing”. That broke the ice – my neighbour laughed, she too had clearly not enjoyed our Singer, “well, you got me there” she said, “can I look at the photos close-up – she’s just a dot on stage with my glasses.”

Star amoung stars
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Vancouver from the Observation Deck

Sun Tower
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Its Saturday and our last full day in Vancouver. We get the bikes out for the last time and head downtown to the Observation Deck downtown near Canada Place. The views of the city are fantastic. The commentary from the local tour guide are hilaiously over the top! Quite un-Canadian - I thing he was guiding a bunch of US cruise ship visitors. After the observation deck we we went to the Art Museum. There was a visiting exhibition - Monet to Dali. It was mainly from the Cleveland Art Museum. (they certainly have quite a collection in Cleveland). Well worth the visit. Then a last cup of coffee in Starbucks and home. We went out to dinner to-night in our local diner - Moxies. We had a good meal. As we left the restautant it was bucketing rain. It was the first real rain we had seen in 2 weeks - and we are going home to-morrow - good one!

Vancouver Freight
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Cruise Ship Canada Place
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Vertigo
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Tourists
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Canadian Football

Canadian Football
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Canadian Football is very similar to American Football. However there are some differences. The main difference is that there are 3 downs onlt instead of 4 downs in American football. It seems that each down starts with a maximum of ten yards (unless there are penalty yards imposed.) Thus lost ground is given back. The pitch is also ten yards longer. The teams play for the Grey Cup. The season starts earlier than the NFL - This game was game seven for the Lions. Winnipeg are leading the Eastern Conference and the Lions are leading the Western Conference. However Lions lost last week to Saskatchewan and a loss today would not be good.

Lions Vs Bombers
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Final Score
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It was an exciting match. Lions made it look easy in the first quarter. But the Bombers stayed in touch all the way through to the final quarter and in the end just squeezed past. The difference between the 2 teams was that the Lions missed a number of field goal attempts while the bombers were more sucessful with their field goals. The final score was 22 points to 21 to Winnipeg.

Senan and I enjoyed the match - first time at a football game. We travelled to the game by Ferry from Granville Island but had to walk home.

SandBar Restaurant

Thursday night was Lisa's last night. We went to the excellent SandBar restaurant just down the road from us on Granville Island. Luckily we had booked - it always seems to be busy. The ambiance is lively, the menu is great and then the fish menu... simply not to be missed when in Vancouver.

SandBar Restaurant
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Chicago to-morrow
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I Love Lisa
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Martin Chops Sticks
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I'm on Camera
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Time for some SERIOUS shopping

Downtown Vancouver
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After 3 days communing with nature (Lynn Valley; Eagle Harbour; Whistler; White Water Rafting; Shannon Falls) the girls needed some serious retail therepy. So they headed for Robson Street early on Wednesday. The boys lazed around for a bit - and eventually headed in on the bikes. We had some important business also. First we collected our tickets for the Canadian Football game - BC Lions Vs Winnipeg Blue Bombers on Friday night. Then we went in search of a Philadelphia Eagles jersey. It was a bit of a struggle - it looked like all we could find was a jersey or Owens - and since he only played 2 seasons and is now retired - that didn't seem like a cool idea. But persistance paid off - and we got what Senan was looking for - Westbrook. (They also had McNabb!) We also got BC Lions t-shirts so that we could blend on on Friday.
Then we met up with the serious shoppers and finally both made our seperate ways home.

Preview of the Fall collection

Shannon Falls
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Although its early August there was just a little fore-taste of the autumn colours (which we will miss) at Shannon Falls, British Columbia.

Shannon Falls

Shannon Falls Uploaded by M+MD

Mags and Lisa Uploaded by M+MD

On the drive down from Whistler we stopped at the spectacular Shannon Falls. It's hard to miss as you can see the water cascading down the mountainside from the highway. It's been a most interest drive down. With stops to take in some of the white water and mountain views. We even found a Wal-Mart and had to take in that important, not to be missed cultural encounter. Shannon Falls was in full flow.

Log Walking Uploaded by M+MD

Rock Hopping Uploaded by M+MD

We scrambled around the river looking for interesting views. It was fun jumping around from rock to rock and climbing out on fallen tree trunks. The best views however were are the well constructed, strategically placed, viewing platform.

Observation Platform Uploaded by M+MD

White Water, Green River

Green River
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On our second day in Whistler we went white water rafting. It was fantastic. The safety talk was a little scary, but it meant that we were a very very obedient crew. Our raft leader was called Renee and was Australian. We were about 90 minutes on the water with the first 20 minutes doing some basic training. We got pretty wet but nobody fell out.

White Water, Squamish
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Can we go again?
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Cold Drinks?

Cold Drinks?
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Ice Cold in Whistler
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This is one way to keep your drink cool when you are above 6,000 feet.

Whistler Mountain

Near the top of the world
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Up the Gondola
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On Monday we headed up to Whistler in the Rockies. It is about a 2 hour drive from Vancouver. It is where some of the Vancouver Winter Olympics events will be held. The drive up is spectacular. It was a beautiful day when we arrived - over 25 degress and bright sunshine. We got the Gondola from the village to the Roundhouse, which is just over 6,000 ft. It was a little cooler up top but still warm. We hiked the last 900 feet to Little Whistler summit. At the top there was a tea room which did not sell coffee! The views all around were breat-taking. It was such a clear day you could see for miles and miles in every direction. There was even a little snow.

Whistler Summit
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Spectalcular Views
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Tea at the Top
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Canadian Flag
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Daffodil Lane

After Lynn Valley we went back to Colm and Babs for lunch. They have a lovely house on the side of a mountain but only 5 minutes walk from a beautiful will harbour called Eagle Harbour. They sometimes see bears in the back garden - BEARS!

Lunch
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Chez Caldwell
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Time for a Swim
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After lunch we walked down to the harbour. It really is in an idyllic setting. Vancouver Island is in the distance. Senan and I had a swim - it was lovely, came water almost warm - we even saw a seal in the water.

Seal Head
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Eagle Harbour
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Lynn Valley Bridge

Dog Tired
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ON Sunday morning we were collected by the Caldwells. Of course we had to show off the float home first.
Then we headed across Lions Gate Bridge to Lynn Valley in North Vancouver.

Having Fun
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Forest Walk
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Twin Falls Bridge
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Flowers
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It is a beautiful spot with a suspension bridge and forest walks. We walked to Twin Falls bridge - which was about 20 minutes from the car park. It was a beautiful spot. The forest is not the conifers that we are used to in Ireland but there are giant Douglas Fir, and its all on the side of a pretty serious looking mountain. You don't stray off the path becaause there are bears - yes, BEARS really! It's also a place where almost every year some young male dies or is badly injured jumping into the river. We were watch the river from the Twin Falls foorbridge when we heard a loud noise. "It's jumpers", we were told and sure enough there was a group of about six teenagers. Most of them jumped - I got just one on camera. See More Lynn Valley Photos

Jumper
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Climbing back up
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