Congratulations to Cara Fox who celebrated her 21^st with a great party in Dublin last weekend. Cara is the daughter of Jimmy and Marie Fox and her granny Joan Farrelly enjoyed the break in Dublin.

On Friday 2^nd June a painting exhibition opened in Brigit’s Gardens, Roscahill which is between Moycullen and Oughterard. All the exhibits were crafted by the Art Class in Oughterard and the sister Doc has a few of her works on display. The exhibition runs until the 11^th June during the opening times of the gardens.

At the weekend two couples on bicycles made a stop at Shannonbridge and after a chat we found out that the four of them had just started out on a cycle trip that hopefully will take them to Sydney in time for Christmas Day on Bondi Beech. They intend to camp at night and for once they are not doing the trip for sponsorship or whatever. One of the men was once a Garda stationed in Abbeyleix and he said he made a made a habit of calling in to Shannonbridge on his way home to the west. He always had a notion to do something different and his friend said ‘right, when you retire, the four of us will do it’.

Find out more about what they plan to do at their website www.salthill2sydney.com

There will be a lot of cycling and acking joints but they agreed to take a bottle of The Rub along with them. We noticed that they were wearing snazzy socks and it turned out that one of the men owns Connemara Socks. Wishing them all the best on their journey and sorry I mislaid the paper scrap with their names attached and when I tried to get their website nothing appeared so it must be a different carrier. Maybe you will have better luck in the search. The salthill2sydney part is correct. Try connemara socks as they may be using the same carrier.

The Midland Tribune has a weekly column titled ‘From The Pages Of The Past’ and part of it this weekend 3^rd June deals with Lord Ashbrooke’s Estate. In the House of Commons on Thursday last, Mr Reddy MP asked the Chief Secretary whether he could state the number of evictions which had taken place on the estate of Lord Ashbrooke in King’s County since 1903.

In another section Mr Reddy MP from Shannonbridge had a question on the welfare of his constituents in the Birr Division of the King’s County (now County Offaly). Remember from the school days that Offaly and Laois were the first two counties planted and were renamed King’s County and Queen’s County (for Laois).

The weather has been glorious for the June Bank Holiday so far with lots of sunshine and plenty of burnt skin. The fine weather has meant that the river level has dropped from 3.7 Metres on Tuesday to 3.5 Metres on Friday and then my reader of levels Brian of the Barge took off up the river for a visit to Lecarrow for the weekend.

Glad to see Ken Gunning home on a visit from the island of Jersey where he has been living for ten years now.

An attractive looking girl asked about The Ladies and Gents Habits box on Friday night and said she wanted to buy a blue one for herself as she was a Child of Mary. She promised to come back on Saturday to have a look at them. When I checked the box on Saturday morning there was no blue habit, but there was one there at 6pm that evening. Still awaiting the return of The Lady.

George Stokes party of four enjoyed their week and George finished on a high. See Fishing report. He regretted that he was not here for his birthday on May 22^nd as the house was booked but he plans to be here for the Happy Birthday bit next year and has already booked the house.