Hello from a wet Limerick. I am at the cornmarket and it is a little wet.

Yesterday I thought that I would add a regular feature to the blogg. I will call it the 222 section and it will be pieces from the Freeman's Journal from 1784. I happen to have a copy of every issue from that year. I will try to bring the latest news from my time travels. Last year I was gathering material about early ballooning in Ireland and I spent a lot of time scanning the papers from 1784. I grew up in Tullamore and if you look at the crest for the town you will see a phoenix rising from the ashes. I think that in 1785 a large part of the town particularly Patrick Street where I grew up was burned down in a ballooning accident. Early ballooning user two methods to make the hot air (1) inflammable gas (hydrogen), (2) hot air made from having a fire under the balloon. So the Hindenberg accident was just another accident in the history of lighter than air transport using hydrogen.

I bought some chocolate from one of the girls from the Cocoa Bean company that was featured on TV recently. They make some very unusual flavours of chololate, some made with pepper, salt and even chilli but I got some very traditional types e.g. Earl Grey Tea, ginger, orange etc.

The book shop here in the market has a great mix of books, cards, music and some pictures. I got a lovely flyer for a Remmington typewriter and a small book from the 1930's.

Did you see the article in the Irish Times Science section during the week about green house gas emissions from cattle? It seems that each cow creates 500 litres of greenhouse emissions per DAY! There are a lot of cattle here in Ireland.