Tuesday 31 January 2012: A little bit of France?

Ooops - I've inadverdently deleted the image I was going to put up today - this is what a day of floating and sinking with the infants does to you. So you'll have to have this, not a glorious image but a fairly interesting one.
The local post office in Durrus looks pretty plain and uninteresting until you look upwards and there in the roof are four rather unusual little circular dormer windows. They look very French to me and this is not impossible. Durrus used to have a colony of Hugenots who arrived in Cork shortly after the revocation of the Edict of Nantes in 1685 - you were no longer allowed to be a Hugenot /Protestant in France and many fled to the Uk and Ireland. Durrus had strong protestant ties already as the local landowner, lord Bandon, was also protestant. The Hugenots brought their skills in silk and linen weaving with them. There were 4 mills at one time in Durrus and I have a probably fairly fanciful and romantic notion that this must have been one of their houses. Interestingly one of the local names is Dukelow from the French du Clos. So a little bit of France in West Cork.

Arthouse tonight is We Need to Talk About Kevin - we've actually seen this already and I think once is probably enough. Very well made, pretty depressing but Tilda Swinton is luminous in her despair.

• Canon PowerShot SX120 IS:
• f/4:
• 1/160":
• 51.1mm:
• ISO 320

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