It's always been a dream to have a wild garden, one that respects what's going on in nature and at the same time plays with colour and delight. For so many years I have just pottered once a year to try and keep some order on mine. Gradually as I focussed all my time on the day job, gardening became overwhelming and . . .
October
“To know fully even one field or one land is a lifetime’s experience.” Patrick Kavanagh Today we began our second lockdown. It will be another challenge especially as the light fades into winter time. But we are well and the weather is kind. Most of all we are lucky to have space and to be warm . . .
The lake
The lake is a permanent feature of life here. It has a unique ecosystem but it's not a popular place unless the sun shines. To us it has a special charm all of its own. I don't remember swimming in it at all until my two nephews, who live in Sweden, came for a visit. In Swedish culture, lake swimming is the order of the day. At that . . .
Coming out of lockdown
I’m trying to unfurl from lockdown. It seems to be a slow process. Like how coming out of hibernation might be for a chubby lazy bear. One of my childhood pets was a tortoise. I think they were popular in those days. It was supposed to go to sleep for the winter. But as there was no internet, we knew very . . .
Such a wonderful Spring!
Spring has been a difficult time. It's not just the social isolating, or the threat the pandemic poses. Our family lost our beloved Step Mother to the Covid 19 virus on April 18th. I've written 4 pieces for the Waterford News and Star since the lockdown. They meander through the last few weeks with the story of what happened . . .
Making a home for birds
I know pheasants are mostly bred in captivity and therefore can almost be regarded as predators in our wildlife sanctuaries. But somehow, I can't discriminate and here they are, still living in our patch. Charlie is the big fella and he arrived last year. His offspring, a young cock, has long gone or may even be . . .
This we have now……but are we already in the decline?
This we have now is not imagination. This is not grief or joy. Nor a judging state, or an elation, or sadness. Those come and go. This is the presence that doesn't. Rumi It's not that I didn't already know. I had been aware of the decline in wild things for the last few years. But the news this week that our insect . . .
Nice exhibition on the car door this morning
Dripping with morning dew, these silken webs are at their most luminous. Later they fade into dry vegetation, invisible again. Damp and dark they shimmer on the branches, woven art works hanging between the gorse and the brambles. Sometimes they are stretched beyond a circle, or a long leash extends into the . . .
The staycation; land, sea and me.
I've taken a break from this blog for a staycation; interwoven with salt water, forest bathing and butterfly spotting. It was hot in Ireland. I often sat under an umbrella, unable to put even one toe onto the baking sand. All the windows and doors had to be open wide, day and night. Everything scorched. The green turned to gold in the . . .
Getting to know birds better
“We need the tonic of wildness...At the same time that we are earnest to explore and learn all things, we require that all things be mysterious and unexplorable, that land and sea be indefinitely wild, unsurveyed and unfathomed by us because unfathomable. We can never have enough of nature.” ― Henry David Thoreau, Walden: Or, Life in . . .
