As the evening draws in, the snow settles and I ponder the long trip I have to make that next day. The forecast suggests it will linger long enough for a dawn ramble before I head off. Just as the sun rises I am out on the snowy lane. One set of tyre tracks tell me that my neighbour has already made it up the hill. This . . .
For the week that’s in it……a real Irish pub……
Come in out of the cold ya poor craythur! Smoke from the fire and a kettle on the boil. The clock tick tocks. A lad sits at the counter. He dropped in "just for one" to his home away from home...... You know they don't serve "coffee" so don't even ask. This is where my Grandfather drank a pint of Guinness and a . . .
Her labour
Her labour Salty finger tips cling to aching wrist. Pumping elbows, hang from cliff hanger shoulders. Taut chords strangle the hardened neck. Delivering a weighty head through brain blowing tedium. Leaves tangle and soak her skin. Cool on cheeks, all hot from google alerts. Eyeballs . . .
Inner warmth and woolly hats
She and I ran around a field excited by our newly wellied feet. We climbed to the top of a hill liberated from tartan skirts and white socks. We went "skating" on a frozen lake in our first corduroy jeans. She fell through the ice. I brought her home, shivering. She and I went climbing trees. We were swinging from an old Elder, hanging upside down . . .
Looking into each others eyes
My children once explained to me that although animals share our world, we treat them as inferior instead of as different. O yes they argued humans think we are vastly superior, so clever, so advanced. But we are wrong they said, all the beings on the planet are just different versions of life, intelligence, adaptation. Each have . . .
Listening to voices
I am on the move and missing those walks on the lane. From life on the road, the midlands of Ireland open like a golden tablecloth waiting to be laid for Spring. Crumpled, layered, deep. The dark trees are silhouettes now, solid and strong. They open conversations with the sky and the land. Then they turn to me saying . . .
The light of new possibilities…..
The word for 2013 is light. It opens my heart to the light in photography which I am learning is the very essence of it; to the lightness of footprint on the planet which I hold dear; and to the light of new possibilities. From Monday morning work gets back to normal and the day job continues to throw up even more . . .
Winter sets in and the elves are pretty busy….
Winter has set in and I am now counting the weeks until the Solstice and the gradual return of light. In the dark evenings I burn candles to cheer our hearts, cosy up with a blanket and find I am craving chocolate! On waking, I love the silvery glow and a particular kind of stillness that announces another frosty . . .
An unlikely pair of romantics
The evening light is warm as toast casting long terracotta shadows on the woodland grasses. The Robin is back! The bare branches allow me to follow him along the track. But . . .
Raindrops
When the rain rolls in from the western Atlantic we can be enveloped for days. The greyness hangs over the whole island like a wet blanket. We struggle to . . .
