For the Port Ellen leg of the trip, we didn’t need a car so we dropped that back in the morning, left our luggage at the hotel and headed off to the first and closest distillery, Laphroaig.

One of the first thing we noticed as we headed out of Port Ellen was a sign if Islay Wines. It’s basically someone’s house with a gazebo out the front where they do a free wine tasting as people come in. We were brought through all of wines available.

Clearly, grapes don’t grow on Islay so these are fruit wines. The rhubarb is particularly good but they also do a barley wine, not to be confused with the beer equivalent. It’s a wine made out of barley and is rather good. We bought a few bottles for the craic and to support local people and left them there to pick up after the distillery tours.

Laphroaig

I’m fairly familiar with the regular Laphroaig whisky of course, anyone who likes peated Scotch is but I’ve also had some cask strength 25 year old at the Laphroaig stand at Whiskey Live in 2017. It was brought out from under a table as it wasn’t technically part of the show but the man recognised someone who would appreciate it. Smoooooooth.

I did the usual tour around the distillery which of course is well worth doing because they still malt their own barley onsite, at least they malt as much as they can but they still need to bring in other malted barley from the Diageo owned maltings in Port Ellen. We literally stand inside one of the kilns.

One fun thing I learned about is the friends of Laphroaig scheme they run. Essentially, when you buy their whisky or show up at the distillery, you get a little cert which entitles you to a little plot of land. You register your plot and then any other certificates you get, you can add to it your account to gain points which you can use in their shop. If you like, you can put on a pair of boots and trek out to your plot of land but that takes you away from the precious whisky so I didn’t bother. This account or cert earns rent in the form of a mini dram bottle of Laphroaig once per year, if you visit the distillery that is.

After the main tour, I did a tasting of all the whiskies shown above. The green, unlabelled one on the left was a 15 year old one that Prince Charles used to sell on his own website. Laphroaig uses his Royal warrant since 1994.

The other odd bottle to the right was never for sale. It’s a cask strength blend of bourbon and sherry casks. We also got to try some new make spirit which clocks in at 69.9% ABV and is basically poitín.

My favourite was the Masters Edition but a close second was the 15 year old Cairdeas and that’s what I purchased from the gift shop in the end for budgetary reasons.

Lagavulin

The next day was August 6th which was my 40th birthday and I was being really spoiled that day. Lagavulin is the furthest of the three local distilleries but it’s still only a 4km walk which takes less than 50 minutes. In fact, you can easily do it in about 40 minutes.

I’ll be honest, I first heard of Lagavulin from Parks & Recreation. It was all that the character, Ron Swanson drank. It’s not on most whiskey menus in Ireland and when I finally tried it, I was blown away by how smooth it is. I obviously had to visit and my wife arranged a special warehouse experience for me.

On the warehouse experience, the legend himself, Iain McArthur comes out of retirement to guide us through a tasting of cask strength Lagavulin drawn directly from the casks themselves. In fact, we draw the whisky ourselves from the casks if we were lucky enough to be picked.

In my case, Iain selected me to draw the 21 year old bourbon cask because it was my 40th. He then came over and completely filled my glass to overflowing. That was enough to fill three driver dram bottles and enjoy a full dram from my glass. Considering I couldn’t afford to actually buy a bottle of 21 year old Lagavulin, that was good going. We also tried the 21 year old sherry cask. At £30 per person for the Warehouse Demonstration, it’s a bit of a bargain actually.

Oh and remember how I mentioned Ron Swanson earlier? Well Iain mentioned that had we been here a week later, Nick Offerman himself would have been there to launch his very own version of Lagavulin.

Ardbeg

Next, we headed to the Ardbeg distillery where I had a tour booked as well as another warehouse tasting.

I’ve been a fan of Ardbeg 10 for years and it’s probably the peated Scotch I drink the most. Myself an Pauline often enjoy a “wee dram” of Ardbeg so we were both really looking forward to this one.

We did the usual tour which I won’t bore you with other other than to say that it was a really good tour. Ardbeg by the way is the only one of the three Port Ellen distilleries that has a restaurant onsite so it’s one of the best places to eat in the area. Bear in mind, they only do lunch, not dinner unfortunately.

The Ardbeg tour at 2pm is the one that includes the tasting in the warehouse. It lasts 2.5 hours and costs £50 but it’s worth it. I’ve never even seen these versions of Ardbeg before. At the gift shop, I went for a bottle of An Oa which I had tried at the restaurant with lunch and really enjoyed.

Food on Islay

Now, you might think that Islay is a tourist destination for whisky lovers so there must be plenty of places to eat? You’d be wrong so be prepared.

Over in Port Charlotte, there are two places to eat and we went to both of them. The first is the Port Charlotte hotel and the food was excellent. I don’t think we had a reservation but we luckily got the last and only table available.

For the next night, we did have a reservation at Lochindaal Seafood Kitchen which is just on the edge of town. It’s quite new I believe and is part of the hotel of the same name at the other end of the village. Seafood is their specialty but due to the nature of their clientele, if you want anything fancy like lobster or a seafood platter, you need to order it 24 hours in advance. Pauline did that and the food was amazing as well as generous. The scallops in particular were beautiful.

In Port Ellen you of course have the Ardbeg restaurant for lunch and for dinner, your two real options are the Sea Salt Bistro which was pretty good and the Islay Hotel itself. Both do very nice meals though not as impressive as the Port Charlotte offerings.

I really enjoyed my trip to Islay and it’s rather easy to get to from Ireland during the summer so I’m sure that some day, I will get back there but for now, I’ve a bunch of souvenir whiskies I brought home.

The post Islay Whisky on….Islay – Part Two appeared first on Reuben Gray's General Musings.

Getting to Islay from Ireland

Believe it or not, Islay (pronounced eye-la) is pretty close to the Antrim coast and while the conventional way to get there would be to fly to Glasgow and get a plane to Islay from there, a cheaper and quicker option is to get a boat from Ballycastle in Northern Ireland to Port Ellen on Islay. We visited at the start of August which was the weekend I turned 40.

The ferry service is provided by Kintyre Express between April and September, based out of Campletown in Scotland. It’s a fast, comfortable 12 seat boat with a toilet on board. Our crossing took about a 90 minutes and was uneventful in terms of weather as it was calm and flat, although I’d say in rougher seas, it would be a bit more lively. On the crossing over, we even saw a pod of Dolphins or possibly Pilot Whales as well as plenty of Puffins and Gannets along with other sea birds. One real benefit of doing this is that there’s no luggage limits. You leave your car in Ballycastle (plenty of free parking) and come back loaded with Scotch Whisky.

Distilleries on Islay

On the map above, there are 8 working distilleries on the island. There’s a 9th one called Ardnahoe in the north east near Caol Ila and Bunnahabhain but they haven’t produced anything yet, though I did visit during the trip.

You don’t need a car to visit the three Port Ellen distilleries but it’s pretty handy to visit the rest. Bowmore and Bruichladdich can be reached on a local bus service but it’s not the most regular of services so might prove troublesome.

We opted to rent a car which was waiting in Port Ellen and we drove towards Port Charlotte where we had accommodation booked for 2 nights in an Airbnb just outside of the village. We were early enough that our accommodation wasn’t going to be ready yet so we stopped off in Bowmore first which is technically the principal town on the island.

We weren’t on time for a tour but that’s ok, we were directed upstairs to the tasting room where I was offered a free dram of single malt. We had hoped to get a bite to eat but they didn’t serve food, a quirk we discovered is shared by most of the distilleries on the island. So we headed out to grab a bite to eat in town.

Next, we stopped off at Islay Ales by Bridgend which is set in a kind of craft village. It’s worth a visit and I’ve written about that on my beer blog: taleofale.com on this post.

Since it was time to check in to our Airbnb, we headed there next and checked in before walking the 25 minutes to Bruichladdich in the hope to get the last tour. We made it just in time but it was full unfortunately. That doesn’t matter, we were invited to the tasting bar to try, well pretty much everything as it turns out.

We were taken on the tasting journey through 7 Bruichladdich whiskies and even a gin and they were all absolutely wonderful. I opted to buy a bottle of the Port Charlotte which I had to hand fill myself. It was the one we liked the most during the tasting.

The next day, we took the car the more obscure distilleries that pretty much require a car to access them. We started off at Kilchoman on the west side of the island. It is pretty much in the middle of nowhere but a beautiful drive to get there. We had already eaten that morning but Kilchoman does have a cafe so we grabbed coffee and cake.

We couldn’t do a tour but again, we did a tasting and bought a bottle of Sanaig from memory, though I might have grabbed something else actually. We also picked up two bottles of a peated bramble liqueur they make.

Next we headed to the north east of the island where there were three distilleries near Port Askaig. We started at the Ardnahoe distillery which is the newest one the island. Everything is shiny new, it only looks like it opened its doors a few weeks before we arrived and as it turns out, it had only opened at the end of May.

Since they are too new to have any of their own whisky for sale, I asked for a random whisky from their list. Inside is a massive tasting room with full seating and a restaurant. It was a nice pit stop but really, there’s little to bring you there at the moment other than the prospect of food, lovely views of Jura across the water and somewhere to stop on the way to Bunnahabhain.

The next stop was Bunnahabhain where we couldn’t get a tour because they simply weren’t running them that day due to being on a shut down. I had a sample or two before moving on to Caol Ila which was futile because the whole distillery was pretty much closed to the public for construction. There were limited tours running but you needed to book in advance.

So we just headed off around the island in the car, including a quick stop at Ardbeg for lunch before heading back to Port Charlotte for dinner.

The next day, we would drop the car back to Port Ellen and spend the next 2 days visiting the 3 distilleries nearby on foot.

The post Islay Whisky on….Islay – Part One appeared first on Reuben Gray's General Musings.

Loam – Galway

On July 25th, we headed west after leaving work early. We were doing part of the Wild Atlantic Way, beginning in Galway and ending in Sligo. Our first destination in Galway was dinner in Loam, one of the two Michelin star restaurants in the city. We had been meaning to visit for years because we had heard the seasonal nature of the menu was a huge selling point. They only use what’s in season so the menu changes quite often. The last time we were in Galway, it was booked out but this was a Wednesday evening so we had no issues.

After chatting to food critic Leslie Williams at an event a few weeks before, he recommended going while it was still summer to get the brightest experience before the winter vegetables kick in.

The food was stunning, easily the second best in Ireland after Chapter One in Dublin. I haven’t written about Chapter One yet as I’ve only been once and despite having a mouth infection which seriously affected my sense of taste, it was still the best food I had ever had. Loam is close in terms of food but it just lacks the cosy atmosphere of Chapter One. Another thing is that they only seem to serve wine. I saw no evidence of beer or spirits in the restaurant or on the menu. To me, that misses the mark when it comes to a gastronomical experience. Wine and food make a great pairing but beer is just as good and even better than wine in certain instances.

Rant about lack of beer over, we did of course opt for the wine experience with the tasting menu. This gave us a small glass of wine with 5 of our 6 courses. Why one course was missing, I’m not sure. It was a dessert but I feel a port or possibly a sherry might have worked nicely here.

My overall thought about Loam as this. Go for the food, not for the atmosphere. There’s no real atmosphere in Loam, the hush is like that of a library. The building has an industrial feel. There’s no real warmth in the place. The staff are knowledgeable and our wine sommellier was clearly an expert but also entertaining.

The food is the hero in Loam. It seems simple on the face of it but what arrives is anything but simple. One note about our menu is the second course. Described as squid, shiitake and egg, this was an orgasmic experience. The squid had been turned in to a thin pasta. I imagine the calamari rings were placed in a pasta machine and rolled out to make them long and thin. The broth was just exquisite. I’m only sorry I didn’t take a photo of that dish as it was my overall favourite and I could easily have enjoyed a large portion of it as a main course.

The post Loam – A Michelin Star Experience in Galway appeared first on Reuben Gray's General Musings.

Last week, I heard about a chicken wing festival taking place in Bray at the weekend so I vowed to head along on Sunday. It’s called Wings Food Fest and it took place on July 20th to 22nd 2018. Myself and my wife are big chicken wing fans, though we hadn’t heard of this festival before and apparently it has been running for a few years.

It takes place along the Bray promenade and this year, included a fun fair because the Bray Air Show would be the following (this) weekend.

The first thing I noticed was the big BBQ pit in the middle and I recognised Simon Dyer at the helm because I had just watched a re-run of the one and only series of BBQ champ on TV where he came first. It’s a pity they didn’t continue with the series but I suppose basing a BBQ show on the Great British Bakeoff was a bit of a long-shot.

The second thing I noticed was the massive queues for any of the stands which had actual BBQs going. If there was smoke, there was a queue. I was hungry having only eaten a ham and cheese croissant for breakfast.

My wife joined the smallest queue while I joined one of the largest which was simply branded Wings Fest, so it was the official stand I guess. It was clearly very popular. My queue was cut off by security though leaving about 20 of us cut off from the queue so I moved on to another stand called BBQ Tonight. The queue was long but moved and when I got up I realised they had two different types. Peshawari and something else. I ordered one of each. 5 wings for €5. My wife joined me and we tried our haul. Hers were covered in some rubbish sauce and were very fatty. They tasted like something from a filling station’s deli. Mine both tasted the same but they were meaty and the spices were tasty so we enjoyed them.

We did’t feel like immediately joining another queue and we also wanted a drink so we headed across the road and sat in the Martello beer garden. They bring you wings there and they were very tasty, crispy buffalo wings so we were happy. We popped next door to Porterhouse to meet up with friends and let the wings go down.

After nearly 2 hours, we headed back in to the festival. My friend recommended the festival wings I missed earlier so I joined the queue which was moving quite efficiently now. My wife went off to get the Jaipur masala wings after another recommendation. I got the hottest wings available. They were pretty tame in terms of spice but they were tasty €6 for 6 wings. The Jaipur wings were also €6 but they came with chips, coleslaw and chickpeas as well as dipping sauce. They were by far the best value.

I was bemused by the vegan wings stand sitting beside the festival wings. For one, why would a vegan want to eat a fake chicken wing? Also, they were €7 making them the most expensive I had seen. I never made it to the big BBQ pit because the queues never died down for that one. I think most people were going for the pig on a spit or ribs rather than just chicken wings.

All in all, the event was fun and great for families. The fact that it’s a free event is a bonus. Sure, there’s no drink stands but the pubs along the promenade make up for that. They were all hopping and plenty of people were eating wings there too so it was a win-win for local business and that’s always great to see. It’s no Big Grill Festival but for a free family event it’s brilliant.

The post Wings Food Fest Bray appeared first on Reuben Gray's General Musings.

Skyscraper is the latest Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson disaster movie. I went with my Dad and Nephew last night knowing very little about the movie other than the obvious. It clearly looked like a cross between the Towering Inferno and Die Hard. I went in to the movie under no illusions that this would be anything more than a popcorn fest, despite the fact I don’t usually bother with popcorn.

There will of course be spoilers below.

The premise of the movie is pretty simple on the face of it. Bad guys set the tallest building in the world on fire and The Rock has to save his family. Of course setting it on fire isn’t good enough, they also storm the building in order to get what they came for.

As plot holes go, this movie must be up there with the best of them in terms of the number of them but let’s start with the one that was the most obvious to me. The Rock’s character, Will Sawyer is hired to test the building security for an insurance company. For some reason, the whole building’s security is controlled by a single tablet which has been bio-metrically locked to Will’s face using facial recognition. Will’s old friend has ensured that he gets the insurance gig so he can betray him by distracting him and his family for the bad guys to steal said tablet.

The bad guys perform their duty and steal his bag, assuming it contains the tablet. That was the entire root of their plan. Steal the tablet from him. Will should have been safe. Will’s family was supposed to be at the zoo and not in the building. With me so far? So no one in Will’s family was supposed to be hurt and the tablet simply stolen in order for the bad guys to use it to do bad things with the building. Here’s the problem, since their plan was to simply steal the tablet, how were they meant to unlock it? It was bio-metrically locked to Will! He needed to unlock it first.

The plot holes go downhill from there I’m afraid.

The movie is preposterous but here’s the thing, it’s not really trying to be anything more than what it is. It’s an action movie full of spectacle. It’s a rare movie where the main hero is a cripple. Will lost a leg when he was an FBI agent so the movie makes great use of his prosthetic limb. It has a tendency to fall off. I’m only disappointed he didn’t pick it up off the ground and beat a bad guy over the head with it.

If we inevitability compare this movie with Die Hard, we can see why Die Hard has endured all this time and Skyscraper will be forgotten. Bruce Willis as the hero is far more inspiring. He’s one man with no shoes in a building he’s never been in before trying to save his wife from the bad guys. Bad guys I might add who have a normal reason for being there. Simple greed and theft. I still don’t fully understand what the bad guys were trying to do in Skyscraper. It involved some odd master USB key which much like the ring of power in Lord of the rings, seems to control a bunch of other USB keys with incriminating information on them. One USB key to rule them all doesn’t have the same poetic ring to it though.

Unlike John McClane, Will Sawyer knows the building inside and out. The only person who knows it better is the person who designed it. That means the bumbling bad guys never really stood a chance against their one-legged antagonist.

Oh, and did I mention the duct tape? From fixing gaping wounds to helping him stick to the side of the building before elaborately jumping through spinning wind turbine blades so he can, wait for it, open a locked door? Duct tape can do it all, except to patch all the plot holes in this movie of course.

The post Skyscraper – Sponsored by Duct Tape appeared first on Reuben Gray's General Musings.

Shaky Footage

If you ever thought about using your camera for shooting video and were disappointed by the amount of shaky footage while you are moving around, then a Glidecam might be a good solution. They have been around for over 10 years now and have helped budding film makers produce some really incredible footage. While you might get quicker results from a motorised gimbal, once you balance the Glidecam, it won’t let you down. There are no motors to fail or batteries to run out. A failed gimbal can ruin an entire shoot but a Glidecam simply can’t fail.

What Exactly is a Glidecam?

At it’s most basic, a Glidecam is essentially a weighted pole. The camera sits on a platform on top. There’s an extendable pole for adjusting balance and then weights at the bottom. You add/remove weights according to the weight of the camera. You then have a handle which attaches to the pole on a ball bearing ring so the pole can swivel around. It’s the same kind of ball bearing ring used in wheels and fidget spinners.

While a Glidecam is designed for static video cameras and DSLRs where you screw the camera on to the top plate, many people prefer a quicker approach so they can quickly take the camera off and attach to something else like a tripod or just shoot photos in between video. With that in mind, a lot of people screw in a tripod head. The mount of choice is a Manfrotto 577 which is an adjustable sliding mount. The ability to adjust this plate allows for quicker balancing of the glidecam versus a more traditional, static tripod mount such as the Manfrotto 323 which is what my own Tripod uses. Using the 577, you just lift the lever and slide the camera backward and forward in minute adjustments of only about 1 mm at a time.

Does it Matter Which Model Glidecam I get?

The short answer to this question is no. I purchased a second hand Glidecam XR 2000. That particular model has been replaced by the Glidecam XR Pro. As far as I can tell, it’s exactly the same as mine other than the name used. If I were to guess, they kept one from the budget range and called it the XR Pro so as not to confuse with their HD range which is more expensive. For my Canon 77D, the XR model is more than good enough. Here’s a YouTube video I found that compares the XR 2000 that I have with a HD 2000.  The primary difference is the adjustment plate at the top. On mine, it’s a more manual adjustment where you loosen the thumbscrews and push the plate. On the HD series, turning the wheels moves the plate which allows for quicker, more precise adjustments. On a budget, get the XR but if you plan on making a living and going professional, get the HD series. In fact, I recommend the Glidecam Devin Graham edition. Devin is a film maker who designed a more adjustable Glidecam which the company happily made for him and promptly released to the general public. Just take a look at the results on his YouTube channel which has over 4.8 million subscribers.

There are also cheaper brands out there on Amazon. They are probably very good too so don’t be put off by the price tag of a Glidecam. You can pick up a cheaper brand of handheld stabiliser on Amazon and I did consider buying one before I found the Glidecam for sale second hand. Even second hand, at €140 it was still more than twice the price of a cheaper brand on Amazon which can be picked up for either side of £50 sterling.

Is There a Trick to Balancing?

I’ve mentioned using the Manfrotto 577 mount, that saves a lot of time. The biggest killer when it comes to adjusting is the need to make an adjustment, lift it up, place it back down and adjust again. That can be a severe strain on your arm. I have a cheap set of Neewar studio lights so I simply attached the Glidecam to them. That way I can adjust in real time and see the result instantly. One piece of advice is to make sure your lens cap is off and the camera is switched on because even the act of flipping the camera switch to the on position can change the balance. Also, make sure to remove your camera strap. You can also buy a mount which clamps on to a table and allows you to do the same. A cheap microphone stand will also work in most cases.

There are two levels of balancing. The first is that the camera is level. This means either completely level to the horizon (most likely) or else permanently pointing up or down depending on the kind of shot you require. The other is the smoothness so if you put the pole in a horizontal position, it should take more than two seconds to fall back to a vertical position. If it’s any faster, it will result in shaky video. This video I found on YouTube is very simple and shows step by step how to balance the Glidecam XR Pro.

Take a look at this video I made about it as well as showing you side by side the difference between Glidecam footage and handheld.

The post Using a Glidecam for Super Smooth Video With a DSLR appeared first on Reuben Gray's General Musings.

On Saturday, myself and my fiancee Pauline got the train and Dart combo from D15 to Greystones. I hadn’t been there since I was a child and I recalled it as a bit dull and gloomy. Not so any more, now it’s a vibrant coastal village full of cafés and shops. It’s a very artsy place, everyone just oozed cool. If you are getting the DART out, be ready for the view after the tunnel at Dalkey because it emerges straight on to side of the cliff and the views on a clear day are stunning. I personally recommend going to Greystones and walking to Bray because the Bray DART service is more frequent than Greystones. There’s also a lot more in the way of pubs and restaurants when you arrive hungry and thirsty.

They also had the best looking Butcher shop I’ve ever seen. If you ever find yourself in Greystones with a means of actually getting meat safely home, be sure to pop in there as it all looks immaculate as well as great value. Sadly, we couldn’t bring anything home with us.

After a pint of Wicklow Wolf beer at the pub, we set off to the harbour to start the official Cliff Walk which basically starts at the beach. Unfortunately, there’s a lot of construction of new houses down there so the first part of the walk is almost entirely in between chain-link fence. We felt like we were in a muddy cattle run. In fact, be sure to wear solid waterproof boots with good grip because the first kilometre or so is flat, full of deep pools and almost exclusively muddy. There’s hardcore under the mud but no one is cleaning the mud away I’m afraid.

Things get better a little further up as you start to ascend up the side of the cliff. Now that there’s a little drainage, it’s easier going with less mud. It can still be slow going as you stop to take pictures and take in the scenery though.

You should allow over two hours to complete the walk but being 6km to 7km, you could complete it in a little over an hour if you are quick and don’t stop along the way.

Here’s a video I made along the way. It’s best viewed directly on YouTube with this link. Don’t forget to Like the video and Subscribe to my channel.

The post Bray Head Cliff Walk With Video appeared first on Reuben Gray's General Musings.

Did you know that you can upload your photos from your computer to Instagram using only Google Chrome? It’s just a few clicks of the mouse. Essentially you are tricking Instagram to load the mobile version of the site which allows you to upload photos, the same as if you were using the Instagram website from your mobile device.

All you need is Google Chrome which most people use as their browser anyway. Once you are logged in to the Instagram website, you right click anywhere on the white space and click Inspect. Then make sure the Mobile Device icon is clicked. Then refresh the page and you will see the menu at the bottom, including the plus button so you can upload photos direct from your PC.

I’ve also just uploaded the instructions to my YouTube channel and you can watch that below or else by clicking directly here to view in YouTube.

The post Upload to Instagram From a PC in Just a Few Clicks appeared first on Reuben Gray's General Musings.

I was in Waterford this weekend for my very own stag. There were only 6 of us and we are all at an age where keeping things civil and relaxed is our preference. I booked Bodéga and La Bohème, two of the best restaurants in town for lunch and dinner respectively. Lunch was at Bodega and I can heartily recommend it. Their food is delicious and unpretentious and satisfied us all. I can’t comment on what it’s like for dinner but I imagine it’s very good.

I had booked La Bohème for the Saturday night dinner but when my friend and I arrived on the train in to Waterford on Friday night, we were met with Indian restaurants and uninviting hotel restaurants along the quays so we turned a corner and there was La Bohème so we decided to try and get a table which luckily we were able to do.

I have to say, while we were both famished, we didn’t want a massive meal so we skipped a starter and just ordered main courses. I went for the rib-eye because the makings of a good restaurant is how well they do their rib-eye. Thankfully, mine arrived cooked to perfection, exactly as I ordered it. The meat was tasty and I was happy with my choice. It also meant I could indulge a little more the next evening. My friend for some reason decided to play it safe and ordered the free range chicken breast. He said it was lovely but at the end of the day, it’s chicken and I know what he means. No one ever gets excited about chicken in the food world, though I personally get excited about a well roasted chicken or good chicken wings. That’s different though, that’s a more primal excitement than a snobby foodie excitement.

I have to say, we both felt completely under dressed  at La Bohème. We were in jeans and t-shirts with back packs. In fact, my t-shirt had the word Beer printed in large letters. It goes on to say makes the world go round. We also didn’t order wine which is the done thing in a fancy restaurant. Instead, we ordered local Metalman beers. I ordered Heatsink, their smoked chilli porter as it would pair well with my steak. My friend went with Equinox, their wheat lager which would work very well with chicken or white fish.

After this, we moved on to the recently opened Metalman Bar down the road which I absolutely recommend.

The next evening, six of us arrived in for dinner at 6:30, though actually it was closer to 7 since we were across the road in Tully’s bar finishing off the Ireland vs France rugby match so needless to say, we arrived in to the restaurants in high spirits after Johnnie Sexton cemented his name in sporting history with a last second drop goal to win the match.

I was very tempted to order the pork belly but that’s what I had for lunch so I decided to try something else. Simply because it sounded interesting, I ordered the Trilogy of Creme Brulée of local Crabmeat, House Smoked Salmon, Citrus Gravadlax, Sweet Potato Waffle. I wasn’t sure what I was going to get but when it arrived, I was happy with my choice. I might only question the waffle as it really didn’t add anything to the experience and just seemed odd. It also slightly cheapened the look of the dish I thought.

I had already decided the night before that my meal that evening would be Barbary duck. I was asked how I would like it and said medium-rare but added that I would take it however Chef recommends. The duck comes with a lovely braised red cabbage, a little poached pear and a ginger and honey sauce. I should also add that all main courses come with a selection of seasonal vegetable and potato of the day. I skipped dessert and had an Irish coffee instead.

After we were finished, it was back to Tully’s for a few before going back to the Metalman Bar until closing time.

I just wanted to add one other thing about Waterford. The next morning, we checked out of the hotel and had a wonderful breakfast at Hook & Ladder. After this, we walked down to the Viking quarter and came across this giant, wooden Viking sword which has been carved from an entire tree. It’s absolutely massive and even has the base/roots still attached. I highly recommend taking a look if you are in Waterford.

The post La Bohème Restaurant, Waterford appeared first on Reuben Gray's General Musings.

I’ve been a member of Palmerstown Camera Club since I joined in September 2017. They have a monthly photography competition split in to Novice, Intermediate and Advanced. Since I had been a member of Mullingar Camera Club for two years, I signed up as an intermediate level rather than novice.

Each month, there’s a theme. You submit a colour and a B&W print and then also a projected image which is always an open theme, though many people stick to the main theme anyway.

So far, I have won a place for one or more of my images in every competition. I started off with 3rd place for my projected image. My prints were grand but not up to scratch. They were existing prints from Mullingar.

In Round two, I also got a 3rd place position for my projected image. I didn’t expect a place for my prints as they were only “good” and again, not particularly interesting.

Round 3 had a theme of architecture and this one I took seriously. I came second in the projected and first in B&W Printed.

Round 4 was friendship but unfortunately I couldn’t enter as I had injured my knee and was on crutches. A pity but what can I do? There’s no way to hand in my prints if I’m off my feet and I had no way to get them printed either without getting someone else to do it all for me.

Round 5 was last night. The theme was Reflections and Silhouettes. I was looking forward to this one as I had a great colour reflection of Lake Matheson in New Zealand. It came 2nd and the judge said it was very close to coming 1st. I also took 2nd for my Projected Image of Hobbiton.

Overall, I’m happy with the direction my photography has taken over the last 6 months or so. I’ve also got a lot of compliments for some of my work on Instagram, in particular, the images I take with my phone. The camera on the Galaxy S8 is pretty good for a phone. In fact, the top middle image above of the train station was taken on my phone.

Feel free to follow me on Instagram and Flickr by the way.

The post Photography Competitions appeared first on Reuben Gray's General Musings.