The Battle of Magenta took place near the town of Magenta in the Kingdom of Lombardy–Venetia, a crown land of the Austrian Empire on 4 June 1859.   The dye was discovered in 1859 and named in honour of the event.  Now here is the Irish bit; the leader of French forces was of Irish descent.  According to Wikipedia, his family his family originally had land in Munster, lost it because of Cromwell, and then eventually emigrated to France after 1690. Patrice de MacMahon (Paddy to his mates) joined the French army in 1820 and distinguished himself fighting for Napoleon.   After winning the Battle of Magenta, he was made Duke of Magenta, before eventually becoming President of France!

We have a pond, and from February on it pretty much gets filled with frogspawn.   By now I would normally expect to find no tadpoles left when I dip the pond.   This is normally my prompt to clean the pond out for the year, and to get a pump running to turn the pond into the feature that it is supposed to be.   This year is different. At the weekend a quick netting session was still catching loads of the little blighters, and they still have full tails and only vestigial legs.   Normally by now, (mid June in case you don't pick this story up at first posting), any weeding or other gardening in the area around the pond would disturb loads of miniature but perfectly formed little frogs.   This year they are way behind schedule.   Proof, if any were needed, of just how cold and miserable the weather has been so far this year.   Let’s hope it doesn’t continue like this! You can see that the tad in the picture still has a full tail and...

My Suzuki Burgman was due a service by my reckoning (see my initial write up here: https://oldandireland.blogspot.com/2019/04/transport-solutions.html).   Suzuki recommend 3,500 mile service intervals (or 6 months).   As with most vehicles, there are a few service levels.   Mine was due the more major service, a little early at just over 6,000 miles, but that can't hurt. The simplest ones at 3,000 mile   (3500 miles if you go by Suzuki’s recommendations) intervals require the following: Change engine oil Clean filters (air filter and primary drive filter A nut and bolt check on critical components   Additional tasks to be done at every second service include: Change the oil for the final drive gears Change the spark plug Suzuki recommend changing the engine oil filter at every third engine oil change.   Since pattern oil filters only cost a few quid, I generally change them every time I change the engine oil. Strangely,...