Comber Earlies

Today I went AWOL from my duties of preparing for company and searching for a job. I went to the Comber Earlies festival. Comber is a quaint little town about 20 minutes from the house and it is famous for its potatoes, the earliest harvested. The farmer I bought my bag from said I needed to cook them that night--steam them and serve them with butter. The next night, they’ll lose 20% of their flavour and the next night they’ll lose 20% more.

The real attraction for me was Hugo Duncan, who has a show on Radio Ulster that’s a blend of Irish country music and dedications to people in hospital/anniversary/birthday/pass the driving test, etc. BBC Radio Ulster has a big truck that’s a mobile production studio and it was in the Comber town square today with Hugo running the show.

I’m not a fan of American country music but I like Irish country, probably because the songs are all about the girl I loved in Tipperary or Ballymena or Armagh. They’re more romantic and generally upbeat than the whining I associate with American country and a lot of the singers have lovely voices. Hugo is this irrepressibly positive and funny guy and I find his good humour infectious. One of the people who texted him today said he’d like to have “an ounce of his bounce.” Me too.

Here are two of the statues in the town square. The foreground is the WWI memorial present in every town--Irish regiments were at the forefront of the battles at the Somme and other bloodbaths. The one in the background is of "Major General Rollo Gillespie. Gillespie was a local war hero from the 19th century, famous for his heroic exploits in India” (wiki).

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