IRELAND - KAYAKING THE DIVIDE / IRLANDA - LA SEPARACIÓN EN KAYAK

Hi my dear friends. Today we're going to look at Ireland. I'll show you around Carlingford and the divide between the two Irelands.  I hope you'll like it!


Hola mis queridos amigos. Hoy vamos a mirar a Irlanda. Os mostraré Carlingford y la división entre las dos Irlandas. ¡Espero que os guste!

Info: From Speak Up magazine.
Photos: hogranada.es  /  tripadvisor.es (3)  /  wikipedia.org



IRELAND  -  KAYAKING THE DIVIDE

The small medieval village of Carlingford is in the Republic of Ireland, close to Northern Ireland. The border in fact runs through Lough Carlingford!  During the "Troubles" a British minesweeper patrolled the sea inlet, but today you can paddle across the border without realizing it.  On a sunny day, the lough is full of red, yellow and orange kayaks, and kids jump into the water from large pontoons.  The two communities are now good neighbours.  People might live in the South and work in the North, or vIce-versa.  Southern Irish shoppers certainly like to cross over for some goods deals on groceries!

In Carlingford you can find and see, The Mint,  which is over 400 years old and where they used to make money. King John's Castle, on the waterfront, which was built in 1267  but allegedly for King John of England and the Abbey, the Dominican Abbey, which is maybe 500 metres away, and it is over 800 years old.  And there would have been a big community of monks back in the time when...going back to the Viking times, there would have been monks there.

In Carlingford, if you go round the village, you will enjoy its narrow streets, the old houses, the old walls and a lot of  medieval buildings   because this village has been occupied for thousand years.

ON THE BORDER

Carlingford Lough is a fjord that marks the coastal border between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland. During the times of the Troubles, which began in 1969 and continued for many decades, it could be a scary place.  A British minesweeper was permanently moored there and it would routinely stop and search any boat that crossed the lough, but today you are more likely to see schoolchildren kayaking. They will have come from the Carlingford Adventure Centre. This is in County Lough, on the Republic side of the border.

ADRENALINE ADVENTURE

For over 20 years, one local company, Carlingford Adventure Centre, has been doing its bit both for providing employment in the area and for good relations between the communities.  Most of their work is with schools.  In Northern Ireland the vast majority (90 per cent) of schoolchildren are still educated in segregation, with children of their own faith. So when two schools, one from the North, one from the South, meet here for the day, it is also a political gesture.  In summer, language students come from Spain and other European countries to learn English, combining their studies with outdoor activities. There is a scary highrope walk, to get the adrenaline flowing, and cool activities like zorbing: rolling down the hill in a giant plastic bubble -an activity imported from New Zealand.

PAST AND PRESENT

With its narrow scenic streets, Carlingford is over a thousand years old.  Today, one flourishing local business is oyster farming. Conditions here are ideal for oysters, which are then exported to France.  A few years ago the peninsula was designated a European Destination of Excellence. This means continuing investment in infraestructure, services and facilities on both sides of the border. This is good for the locals and good for visitors!


THE TROUBLES

This term describes the conflict that broke out in Northern Ireland in 1969.  Northern Ireland was created in 1922 when the rest of Ireland obtained independence from Great Britain.  The Protestants in the northern region of Ulster didn't want to become part of the new "Irish Free State", which was predominantly Catholic.  As a result, six of the nine Ulster counties that had a Protestant majority became "Northern Ireland".

Catholics in Northern Ireland were treated like second-class citizens and in the late 1960s they started to campaign for their civil rights.  The Protestants, who ran the local police force, reacted with violence and the British army was sent in.  This was officially to protect the Catholics, but the army soon began to see the Catholics as the enemy.

IF YOU GO...

**HOW TO GET THERE.  Carlingford Lough is about halfway between Dublin and Belfast. There are buses from Belfast or Dublin. www.translink.co.uk   /   www,buseireann.ie

**WHERE TO STAY.   Right by the Lough, Ghan House also serves fabulous dinners and wines.

**WHAT TO DO.  Friendly Carlingford Adventure Centre in Tholsel Street offers days of adventure, kayaking, a highrope course, Ireland's largest rock-climbing site, zorbing... language courses for students aged 10-18 as well as for families.  The Carlingford Oyster Festial is in early August.
www.carlingfordadventure.com


** MORE INFO:  www.carlingford.ie  /  www.discoverireland.ie


                                           ******************************

VOCABULARY

-LOUGH:  lago
-SIDEBAR: recuadro
-MINESWEEPER:  dragaminas
-SEA INLET:  brazo de mar
-TO PADDLE:  remar
-TO DO ITS BIT:  contribuir
-TO MOOR:  amarrar
-TO SEARCH: registrar
-TO IMPROVE:  mejorar
-MINT: Casa de la Moneda
-MONK:  monje.


                                       **********************************

EXERCISES

1 CHOOSE THE CORRECT OPTION.

a) The fjord of Carlingford Lough   makes/marks  the Irish coastal border.
b) A British minesweeper used to be permanently    moored/mired  there.
c) Relations between the two sides are much  different/improved  now.
d) The history of Carlingford Lough goes back    to/beyond  the Troubles.
e) The Mint building located in Carlingford is  200/400  years old.
f) A big community of monks lived there in  Medieval/Viking  times.


2 DECIDE WHICH WORD DOESN'T BELONG IN THE GROUP.

a) scary, heartening, frightening
b) lough, fjord, river
c) aggression, rage, violence
d) programme, assignment, project
e) border, verge, frontier
f) history, past, record


                                      **********************************

SOLUTIONS
EXERCISE 1-  a) marks  b) moored  c) improved  d) beyond  e) 400  f) Viking
EXERCISE 2-  a) heartening  b) river  c) rage  d) programme  e) verge  f) record


SEE YOU , MY FRIENDS!

KEEP SAFE AND HEALTHY!

LIFE STORIES / A REMOTE LIGHTHOUSE / HISTORIAS DE VIDA / UN FARO REMOTO.

Hi my dear friends, today we are going to look at a life story, Ebonee Gregory grew up in a remote lighthouse in Tasmania; there weren't any shops, any bars and even any school or a library. She is going to tell us her  personal experiences.   I hope you'll like it!

Hola mis queridos amigos, hoy vamos a mirar hacia una historia de vida;  Ebonee Gregory creció en un faro remoto de Tasmania. No había tiendas, bares e incluso ni colegio ni una biblioteca.  Va a contarnos sus experiencias personales.  Espero que os guste.

Info: from Speak Up magazine.
Photos:  alamy.es  /  canstockphoto.es  /  oropesa.es




LIFE STORIES BY EBONEE GREGORY  /  I GREW IN A REMOTE LIGHTHOUSE.

My childhood home was an isolated island off the coast of Tasmania. You could walk from one end to the other in a day, but I wouldn't recommend it because of the deadly snakes you might meet on the way.  There were three houses, one car, a satellite phone, an electricity generator, about seven beaches and a lighthouse -that was it.  There were no shops or restaurants, no schools or hospitals, no public transport. There was no crime, and there was no police force.  There were no strangers, only two families lived on the island, one of which was mine.


DAD'S JOB

My father was assistant lightkeeper, and his job was to help the head lightkeeper run and maintain the lighthouse and island. They would take turns each week, turning the light on every evening and off it in the morning, polishing the glass, taking weather readings, and drawing the curtains closed in the daytime to prevent a fire from the concentration of sunlight on the prisms.  My father had been a fisherman for years, and when he spotted the job ad in a local paper, he and my mother saw this lifestyle as an adventure.


HOME DELIVERY

Our food was delivered by plane every two weeks, along with any post. If there was bad weather, the food deliveries would be postponed, and we'd have to manage with whatever tins we had left at the back of the cupboard.  My father would go fishing for seafood in a little boat and my mother used to milk a goat;  we grew our own vegetables, too.  I wore clothes made by my mother.

SOLITUDE

I dind't have any friends. A picture of my second birthday party shows no other guests my age, just the two families on the island. The kids in the other family were my brother's age, so they would hang out together while I spent a lot of time on my own. I don't remember being bored, though.
I made my own fun. I remember playing on the white, sandy beches, sliding down the dunes. In later years, we moved to an even more isolated island surrounded by cliffs, and my younger sister and I would play at leaning into the wind, to see the angle we could reach without falling over, sometimes 45 degrees.


SCHOOL DAYS

I learned about the history of the islands, and was fascinated by the shipwrecks; the lightkeeper who fell off a cliff while herding his sheep, the gravesite for just two babies.
My mother was home-educated until I was five, but then we all moved to mainland Tasmania so we could go to school. It was my first time being around kids my age, but it was a small school, so I never felt overwhelmed.  When I was a teenager, my family moved to another island, and I asked to be sent to boarding school. When I had to come home for weekends, I'd spend all my time on the phone to friends, wishing I was with them.


GETTING AWAY

Now I'm in my 30s.  I find myself seeking out that sense of isolation. If my husband suggests a holiday, I always research sparsely populated destinations in Scotland or Scandinavia.    When I was growing up, the only outside noise I heard was bird song, and the night was pitch black. When I camped  in the garden with my brother one night, we saw a sky filled with stars.


LONDON LIFE

After studying fine art at university in Tasmania, I had office jobs for a few years before I decided to come to the UK for an adventure. Then I met my husband, so I am still here. London can be so overstimulating. When I first came over and started commuting, it was hard to believe that people in a first-world country earning good money could live like this.


MY SON

Our two-year-old son is growing up in a far more frenetic world than the one I knew. I want to see him learn to make his own entertainement. I hope he finds that sense of peace I had as a child, sliding down the dunes, happy in my own company.
But he will never experience  the world I grew up in. The lighthouse I lived in have been decommissioned:  my father was the last lightkeeper for each of them.


                                           *****************************

VOCABULARY.

-THAT WAS IT:  eso era todo.
-LIGHTKEEPER:  farero.
-TIN: lata.
-TO MILK: ordeñar.
-GOAT: cabra.
-GUEST: invitado.
-TO HANG OUT: pasar el rato.
-TO SLIDE DOWN: deslizarse.
-CLIFF:  acantilado.
-TO LEAN INTO THE WIND: inclinarse hacia delante contra el viento.
-SHIPWRECK:  naufragio.
-TO FALL OFF: caer.
-GRAVESITE:  cementerio.
-OVERWHELMED: abrumado.
-BOARDING SCHOOL:  internado.
-SPARSELY:  escasamente.
-PITCH BLACK: negro como la boca de un lobo.


                                         *********************************

*WOULD YOU LIVE IN A LIGHTHOUSE?
*DO YOU LIKE ISOLATED PLACES?
*CAN YOU NAME SOME LIGHTHOUSES THAT YOU KNOW?


SEE YOU MY FRIENDS!

A CALL IN THE NIGHT / UNA LLAMADA EN LA NOCHE.

Hi my dear friends, today, a short story whose title is: "A Call in the Night" I hope you'll like it!

Hola mis queridos amigos, hoy, un cuento corto que tiene por título "Una llamada en la Noche". ¡Espero que os guste!



Info: Speak Up magazine.
Photos: myloview.es  /  freepick.es (2)

A SHORT STORY - A CALL IN THE NIGHT by Rachel Roberts.

I'm not mad. I can prove it!  It's true that I was exhausted when it happened. I'd always suffered from insomnia and after the accident it got much worse.  Often I only slept about three hours a night and it began to affect my health and my work.  But when it happened I wasn't dreaming, or hallucinating. I was perfectly lucid and very awake.


It was about four in the morning and I was just beginning to relax.  So you can imagine how furious I felt when I heard the phone ring.  It wasn't my phone. It was an irritating electronic bleep that woke me up in seconds. It had to be the neighbour's mobile. I knew the walls of my flat were very thin.


I pulled the covers over my head and waited for someone to answer. The ringing went on for ages. I was about to bang on the wall, when it stopped. I was so relieved I rolled over and would have fallen asleep immediately, but then the phone started ringing again.

I couldn't believe it! Why didn't they anwer? I sat up, wide awake, and realized I needed to go to the bathroom. I reached out for my own phone and postponed the alarm by a couple of hours, with a reminder to call in sick at work, then I got up and walked into the corridor.


It was then that the first shock hit me. The noise of the phone wasn't coming from the next door flat, but from somewhere in my own home.  I could hear it much more clearly from the corridor. It was coming from the living room.

I can't describe how absolutely terrified I felt as I walked towards the living room door. Would I find burglars or something worse?

The door was standing open and I walked in with my heart beating painfully.  A bluish glow illuminated one of the bookshelves and there was the phone, still making its horrible noise. But by that time, I wasn't listening.

The second shock of the evening had left me almost senseless.  As soon as I saw it, I realised that the phone belonged to my sister and her phone couldn't possibly be ringing. The battery hadn't been charged for over two months, not since her fatal accident!!


My curiosity was stronger than my terror and I reached out and took the phone from the place where she'd left it on the day she died. I only held it for a few seconds before I dropped it with a cry. Just long enough to see my own face -my profile photograph- and my name lighting up the screen. The call was coming from my phone.


I had a sudden vivid memory of the day when I had tried to call my sister, to warn her about the weather alert and the dangerous conditions on the roads. She had forgotten her mobile in my flat and when I called, it had rung on the bookshelf where she'd left it. I had picked it up and seen my own face and name there. Just like now.


The phone stopped ringing as it hit the floor and I ran to switch on the light. Then a sudden thought made me laugh with relief. I had changed the alarm on my phone. In my exhausted and confused state I must have touched some command and accidentally called my sister.

My heart began to beat fast again and with shaking fingers I dialled her number. There were a few clicks and then a metallic recorded voice said: "The number you have dialled does not exist."


Of course. I had cancelled her contract myself!!!

I went back into the living room. It was beginning to get lighter outside but I left the light on. I pressed the on/off button hard on my sister's phone, but the screen remained blank. It was completely dead.

Why had it happened? Was it guilt that I had not been able to reach her on that day of torrential rain, when the river had flooded and overturned her car?

I waited a long time before calling her. I don't know why. Part of me thought she would hear the warning on the radio, Part of me was still angry with her because of the argument we had had just before she left.

Perhaps it wasn't guilt. Perhaps my sister was trying to reach me? Maybe she was angry with me because I hadn't warned her in time. That would be like her. She was always so bossy, always telling me what to do.


These were the thoughts that were running through my head as I lay back down in bed, just before the phone began ringing again. Just before the neighbour started banging on the wall. That's how I know I'm not mad, because he could hear it too.


                                                  ***************************

VOCABULARY.

-BLEEP: pitido.
-COVERS: sábanas.
-BANG ON THE WALL: aporrear la pared.
-TO ROLL OVER:  darse la vuelta.
-TO REACH OUT FOR: estirar el brazo para agarrar algo.
-TO CALL IN SICK: llamar para avisar de que uno está enfermo.
-BURGLAR:  ladrón.
-A BLUISH GLOW:  un resplandor azulado.
-FATAL ACCIDENT:  accidente mortal.
-TO OVERTURN:  volcar.
-ARGUMENT:  discusión.
-GUILT:  culpa.
-BOSSY:  mandona.


EXERCISE  1
Write the correct word used in the story in the gaps. The first letter and a description are given to help you.

a) The long journey left her  e____________ (extremely tired)
b) The neighbour's alarm was so persistant that she began to b________ (thump) on the wall.
c) Her son looked  g_________ (blameworthy) and she knew he'd taken the sweets.
d) I'd rather hide under the  c________ (bedclothes) than face Monday morning.
e) Derek isn't here, he  r_______(called)  in sick this morning.
f) When she  s_______(turned) on the light, she found a stranger in her home.


EXERCISE 2
Decide which word doesn't belong in the group.

a) guilt /  responsibility /   blame
b) bossy  /  stubborn  /  officious
c) dazed  /  confused  /  blank
d) dialled  /  called  /  rang
e) fatal  /  bad  /  lethal
f) white  /  blank  /  empty


                                                   *************************

SOLUTIONS
EXERCISE 1 >  a) exhausted  /  b) bang  /  c)guilty  /  d) covers  /  e) rang/  f) switched
EXERCISE 2 >  a) blame  /  b) stubborn  /  c) blank  /  d) dialled  /  e) bad  /  f) white.


SEE YOU MY FRIENDS!