Cocktails being served again soon...

Once I'm back to full strength (and I'm getting there now), the Cocktail Lounge will be open once again...:)

Food Poisoning...!!!

How can the smallest thing do so much damage? Having just got over Swine Flu, I went out for a sandwich yesterday (a very innocent little sandwich, it seemed...) and within hours was losing fluids drastically! and feeling so, soooo washed out. I'll be away for a few days until this thing clears.

Return to the February snows...

After flight delays due to heavy snowfall, I've just got back and overnight further snow has turned the landscape into NARNIA..!! It really is beautiful to look at but is going to cause some problems later today when I travel to work. We'll just deal with that as it comes...!

The 'boys' LOVE IT...!!

Home to Belfast to see friends & family...

I got over to Belfast (in N.Ireland) to see my parents and also catch up with a few old friends for coffee's and breakfast..etc. I'm 'trying' to get over once a month now (just balancing finances and time). So these are a few pics of me with my mum out for a few drinks and lunch, and also some old school pals who met up in a local cafe for coffee and chats.

Always good to touch base with home.

OLD SCHOOL ANNUAL REUNION

This happens every year. The school was founded in 1929 and was closed in the early 1980's. So it's like 'Ten Little Indians' at the reunion dinner, as there's no new blood coming in...

We hold it in one of Ireland's last original Gentlemen's Clubs and it truely is like walking into a byegone era (which of course, I 'love!').

It's also a good opportunity to catch up with people that I don't see on a regular basis, but it is SCARY how quickly the year seems to come around these days!!

Another night and then flying back.

A sad and cruel world at times...

A friend of mine has just told me of a case of animal cruelty . Right now I would give all my vintage suits and flying jackets away to bring that poor little darling back into the world and enjoy a wonderful life...

Bags are packed for the Belfast Clipper...

Will be away for the next few days as I fly out to the exotic Orient tomorrow morning. Will be in contact intermittently via telegrams (cell?). Aloha!!

Just said good-bye to an old friend (It's a jacket!)

My personal WWII A-2 flight jacket has just been sold to a chap in the USA. If this jacket could talk, I'm sure it would have plenty to say, but maybe plenty that none of us would feel comfortable listening to either. So it will be winging it's way home to California in the next few days. Sad really, as I'm very attached to this piece of vintage history, but it's time to pass it onto a new custodian to look after. I've owned this for quite a few years' now, but needs must.
Bye-Bye old friend, and safe journey!

Just given birth to a new cocktail...

I've just been creating a cocktail in celebration of a friend's birthday, as he's coming over to my place with his wife and son and I'm cooking. So I thought I'd create a cocktail with a vintage feel to it. Usually I recreate vintage cocktails from the 20's and 30's from old Cocktail Books, but this is the first time I've 'created one' from scratch. So I had to think about flavours that would compliment each other, the strengths of flavour, the juxtapositions of sweet and sours..etc and also the balance of quantity. I have created, "The Ginger Rogers Cocktail." If you'd like to make this (and I'll post this on my personal blogg, "PADDY WAGON COCKTAIL LOUNGE." See links).

RIGHT...Ice in cocktail shaker.Sugar lump in cocktail glass, and soak THE LUMP in Angostura Bitters.

Pour into shaker, 2oz Cointreau; 1oz Ginger Wine; 1/4 fresh squeezed lime juice.

SHAKE over ice & pour into glass. Garnish with lime slice.

JOB DONE!!

Some Etta James...At Last...

Isn't this where you transform your 'floor mop' into the most beautiful girl at the dance and waltz her around the kitchen (which has magically become 'that' dance hall with the band playing, the lights are dimmed, it just seems that no-body else is there...). Get those mops at the ready... and...
LISTEN TO IT HERE
OR HERE (YouTube)

A Walk in the Clouds...

A WALK IN THE CLOUDS (View here)


CALL me a romantic, CALL ME sappy, but...I really get touched by this little 'B' type movie set in the immediacy of post-war America. If you can get hold of it, do so..and 'tell em Paddy sent ya!!'

The most magical scene, 'for me anyway...' is when the lead couple are in the vineyard amongst the vines and are together with their angel like wings fanning the warmth over the grapes...LOVE IT!! I need to do that one day, out in the vineyards of Italy, up in the hills, where families are still families and eat together outside, Al Fresco, at big long wooden tables with candles and fires...

Anyway, without further ado, here's a little trailer from the movie...(bare with me please, as I'm terrible at linking up with YouTube). Hankies out...Oh, and ENJOY...

Listening to Sir William Walton's SPITFIRE PRELUDE

I know that some of my friend's here enjoy listening to classical music, and also are very interested in WWII. In many ways this piece which I adore, encapsulates both those criteria, and for me conjurs up images of young men in their Spitfires over the south coast of England in 1940, when a German invasion seemed imminent. They were the 'thin blue line' and many were never to return to God's earth in one piece. This music paints pictures in my mind of planes being thrown about the sky like a hornet's nest being prodded, of smoke contrails winding their way across the blue canvas, of young lives spiralling into the English Channel or the chalky earth of Kent. It creates the darkness and doom of invasion from the French coast and the desperation and pumping hearts of those young boys putting their lives 'on the line' not just for Britain but for the future of Western civilization...

SPITFIRE PRELUDE

Paddy is dragged into 21st C. with a new phone...

I'm not a huge fan of mobile/cell phones. But it seems the demands of modern life have by default forced them upon me. They do have their place, don't get me wrong, but I also like privacy and escape from the world at times and it seems that the cell phone is almost an old ball-and-chain that can be yanked by whoever/whenever folk want your time, and you dance to 'their' tune, rather than your own.

But, they are useful from a safety/security aspect, like when the car breaks down. Or you are out in the hills and have a fall. Or maybe you just need to organise to liaise and meet with a friend when in town, or you're going to be late...etc. Can you tell I'm *trying hard* to justify having one to myself!! You see, it's not really practial to carry my heavy old 1938 phone around with me.

So, the other day, I treated myself to a new cell phone. As I have internet access in my contract, but the screen on my little baby phone is far too small to see anything. So I was after one that had a large screen and was easy to access emails/websites..etc on. This phone (see pic), was in the sale, so I went for it. Now, I'm having fun trying to work out how it works, as it seems to be all singing and all dancing.

I don't care if it has a camera, a music player, a voice recorder, ....an espresso maker...(oops, don't think it makes cappucino...but can't promise..! and would be handy), as I just want it as a communications device, but it seems to have all these things thrown in anyway, as the public demand it these days.

At least I can access 'here' and TFL and my emails. Also I can have a pic of Ginger on the front which is nice and I've just worked out how to download/or is is upload? an oldfashioned bell RING to it. So a little bit 0f 38 is in my pocket.

Plus it's slim enough like an old fashioned gent's wallet to fit into my pocket :)

Ladies and Gentlemen, I present to you, the TG01

Norman Rockwell.

It's his birthday. HAPPY BIRTHDAY NORMAN...

I found this painting which I just love...(not sure what it says about 'me,' but..I like it).

Meditations...

A gentleman I have taken under my wing is Autistic and demonstrates high stress levels in different ways. I have been discussing options for either reducing or containing these stress levels and one of the options I am now considering with him, is to go and 'try' a meditation weekend. Looking at it from the therapeutic/healing side of things, rather than any *religious* angle (as I'm well sorted on that score).

I'm very open minded about 'trying' different things/therapies and just thinking 'outside the box.' So have been looking at *taster* sessions in various locations in the UK. Paddy in an ORANGE robe? (Certain irony 'there,' coming from N.Ireland!! Paddy the OrangeMan!!).

But I've run the initial idea off this chap, and he's entertaining the idea, which 'believe me' is a BIG step forward..! I'm quite excited about it all actually.