Jar of Irish, anyone?

I can hold my own in the kitchen but most times it is Mrs NE Liberties that handles things in that department.  There was a time, not so long ago truth be told, when we added spices to pretty much everything.  Nowadays we seem to prefer plainer fare.

View from Castlerock sand dunes, looking over the mouth of the River Bann towards Portstewart.  Taken a while ago, using the rangefinder and no doubt some sort of Ilford film.  Did you notice how I used a slow-ish shutter speed to catch some movement in the dune grass there.  Ah yes, sometimes I actually think about things before I act.  Not often enough though, it has to be said.

Anyway, notwithstanding the above, the other night we had something or other and my wife told me she'd used a little spice from a new jar she had acquired.  I looked.  On the label was 'Middle Eastern...rub to marinade'.  It was pretty good, as it turned out - subtle, which isn't always the case.  But it made me smile a little to myself...I wondered if peeps over there in the 'Middle East' have a wee jar with a label on it which says 'Irish' on it.  I doubt it.

No, Ireland is a great source of good basic ingredients - particularly good dairy produce, beef, milk etc.  All that rain, all that pasture - good for the cows, y'know.

Number 3, on Portstewart Strand.  Number 3 marks the spot I would head up into the dunes, if that's where the notion takes me on a particular day.  After a bit of an up-and-down on the dunes I usually emerge again at Number 5.  Snapped on HP5 in a Mamiya 645 Pro TL, which I borrowed for a while.  Nice camera, but I didn't really gel with it - couldn't really get used to the handling.  I've read that adding a motor-drive grip improves things in that department, but that didn't seem sensible to me, since I don't need the auto-wind feature and it would just add more weight.

It's a very troubled place, the Middle East, these days.  Perhaps it always was.  I travelled a bit in that region in me younger days and boy am I glad I did then, because I sure wouldn't be up for it now, in spite of the beauty of that part of the world.