This morning after Mass at 10.00 my attention was drawn to a plastic bag stuffed into the waste bin across from the church on the green area. It was a Hydrosoft granular water softener salt bag and it contained some interesting items. These included –

- Two old calendars, the 2003 calendar was from Broadrick’s Pharmacy, Ballinasloe and the 2005 calendar was from Keanes of Ennis Wholesalers. No trace of the 2004 calendar.

- A lovely colour poster of various GAA footballers.

- The wrapping from a Comfort toilet roll.

- A printout of www.uibhfhaili.com/offalygaa 2004 review of the Offaly Senior Football Championship.

Do visit their website

The Midland School of Child Care have arranged a part time course titled “Special Needs Assistant Course” which will be held in Ballinasloe and it commences in January. Contact Phone 044-43607 or e-mail deecoleman@eircom.net for further details.

Supermacs are coming to Shannonbridge. They have purchased The Shannonside Diner and work has commenced on renovating the layout of the building to their needs. They have not given an opening date but it should be ready in a few weeks, possibly Easter.

The weekend papers and the weekly papers have articles on the bodies of two Old Bogmen aged 2,300 years. One was found in a bog in Meath and the second one was found in a bog in Croghan, County Offaly .They were found in a remarkable state of preservation and one photograph shows a pair of well manicured nails. Seems that both were killed and their bodies were then buried in the bog. If you do a search for “Old Croghan Man” you may get more information. The BBC is to feature the two bodies in a Timewatch episode and this will be broadcast at 9.00 pm on January 20^th on BBC 2.

Both local papers have a short piece on the Offaly girl in You’re A Star and they give the odds quoted by Boylesports and Paddy Power bookmakers. Boylesports quote Louise at 14 /1 and Powers go 16 /1. She has a warm up session this week as a guest with Brendan Keeley in the Bridge House.

The weather was wet yesterday and as forecast the sun shone bright today. There was talks of winds but they did not materialise except for Moby in the car last night between Cloghan and Shannonbridge. He more than made up for the lack .

There is a Table Quiz tonight in Killeens which is being run in aid of the Moate branch of Bothar who are a voluntary charity group that fundraise and send animals such as cattle, sheep, goats, pigs and fowl to families in Africa.