Author: The COW

I like stories!

One Day In Aughrim, Galway

“He had this green growth on his langer and so he went to the doctor. The doctor asked him if he’d been out somewhere foreign and he said he’d been to Mongolia and so the doctor said, ‘ah, you have the Green Mongolian Veneral Disease then, you might have to have it amputated’. So, he goes to a Chinese specialist and asks him, ‘Will I have to have it amputated?’ and the Chinese lad says, ‘no,’ to which he breathes a sigh of relief. And then the Chinese doctor continues, ’It will fall off all by itself.’” Continue reading “One Day In Aughrim, Galway” →

One Day In Bray

Sitting down on the train to go to Bray (all pics here) I get a bad smell, really bad, and it’s wafting off of my jeans. It’s a smell that reminds me of a teacher I had in school years ago. The man smelled so bad I used to sit right at the back of the class and his stink would still offend my nostrils. Continue reading “One Day In Bray” →

One Day In Clifden

Standing Stones, Clifden. These are thought to date back thousands of years to the Bronze Age and may have been where druids made human sacrifices

Arriving in Clifden with a sleepy head at 11.30, the first thing I go in search of is a cup of coffee. Entering a bakery in Market Street to acquire same I am served by a pleasant young black woman and when she speaks she has as Galway an accent as anybody could ever hear. I don’t know why this surprises me, but it does, and is a sort of wow moment which makes me smile a bit.

“Where’s the loo?” I ask.

“You mean the toilet?” she replies, to which I nod. These days I feel I am increasingly speaking a different language to the youth of today.

Continue reading “One Day In Clifden” →

24 Hours On The Run In Belfast At Energia 24

I wasn’t properly trained to run for twenty-four hours but I did a beef-fueled 52.5 mile training run in early May after not training for four months. 52.5 miles was the longest run by 12 miles I’d ever done at that point and it took me 9.5 hours.

While I realise my choice of fuel sounds weird, last year I did a dietary experiment where I ate nothing but beef for a month. 20 years of chronic and worsening skin inflammation went away within that month. At this point I’m ten months without needing steroid creams which is quite something since I previously couldn’t go a week. Additionally, I experienced a dramatic reduction in chronic, and worsening, IBS and extreme fatigue. My weight reduced to what it was when I was in secondary school and my exercise recovery increased dramatically. Was it all fun? Hell no. I experienced insomnia, breathlessness, dry skin, and tightness in the chest, but I had felt all these symptoms before – every time I gave up smoking cigarettes. Can I afford to eat beef all the time? Hell no, I can’t, and don’t, and after my one month experiment I opted for a more ketogenic dietary approach, which seems to suit me better in any case. Is it healthy long term? I don’t know, so I don’t recommend anybody tries it; but one thing I am sure of is, from a subjective standpoint, is that carbohydrates can be detrimental to good health in many ways. Continue reading “24 Hours On The Run In Belfast At Energia 24” →

One Day In Belfast

Cave Hill at Sunset

Foreword

“YOU ENGLISH BASTARD!” was something I was called regularly as a child by the children in the neighbourhood in Galway. Strangely though, it didn’t actually bother me all that much. In truth, I’ve been called worse things in my life. The most recent thing I get called is “The Mad Cow” which is kind of funny and I guess I left myself open for that one. (Photos on Facebook here: #1, #2) Continue reading “One Day In Belfast” →

One Day In Tipperary

At 10am, I get off the bus in Tipperary town; it is cold. (All photos are on the Facebook page, Galway COW) In spite of putting on an extra layer this morning I can feel the icy morning air penetrating through to my core and I straightaway regret not packing gloves. Continue reading “One Day In Tipperary” →