-
The drought continues
10 June 2020 The onset of the Covid-19 restrictions meant that I was unable to shore up a hole in the eaves just above my kitchen door. It was not long before a starling took advantage of this – she and her partner are now feeding a very noisy bunch of chicks. I am in…
-
Unseasonable weather
10 May 2020 Cat’s ears creeping through the bench by the garage. Yesterday I put away all of my winter clothes and hauled out my summer gear. Today the temperature is creeping up to eight degrees at ten in the morning and that is without allowing for the windchill factor. There is a strong, blustery,…
-
Blossoms for a challenging environment
13 April 2020 At the moment the rough land surrounding the house is ablaze with two main colours. The vivid yellow of the gorse and the lovely white flowers of the Blackthorn (Prunus Spinosa). The former appears to flower all year round here and although it dies back in the occasional winter, it seems unperturbed…
-
All changed, changed utterly
Saturday, 4 April 2020 Roaringwater Bay, the tiny dot just above the top island on the left is the famous Fastnet lighthouse W.B. Yeats wrote the famous lines – see blog title – in his poem Easter 1916 and they seem apt at the moment. It is hard to comprehend the changes that have taken…
-
Wild and Willowy
29 February 2020 Storm Jorge I have just found a new way of passing the time during a storm which is fierce enough to persuade me to stay at home i.e., practicing my new found ‘skills’ in willow work. One of the advantages of this work is that electricity is not required. I am also…
-
Fenced In
Storm Dennis – 14 February 2020 The above photograph of Roaringwater Bay was taken from my window during the height of Storm Dennis. Skeam West island is in the foreground and you can just see the waves on the cliffs of Cape Clear in the background. There were times when the waves almost reached the…
-
Storms and more storms
25 January 2020 I am always slightly reluctant to feed the birds each winter as I don’t want them to become dependent on humans for food. I have been trying to build up hedgerows around the perimeter of the garden to provide both food and shelter for them all year round. However, there is not…
-
Storms, Mice and Christmas Trees
4 January 2020 My Christmas tree is growing! Many years ago, I decided that I could not justify cutting down a tree for Christmas despite the fact that I consider them an integral part of the season. I tried buying a tree in a pot, but soon realized that (a) if I used one each…
-
Storm Atiyah
10 December 2019 As I sit here in the aftermath of Storm Atiyah I am mentally preparing for the most common, and least pleasant, gardening task that I have had to carry out since moving to the South West of Ireland: checking for storm damage. The pre-storm ritual of making sure that nothing can fly…