Latest Posts
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Protest as an Effective Means of Change?
The post discusses how resistance focuses attention on what is disliked, leading to ineffective protest rather than meaningful action. It emphasizes the need for proactive engagement and policy-driven solutions. Continue reading
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LIVING IN A SMALL SPACE Reflections on Control Moving from a one hundred square metre space to one of forty square metre is exciting. It’s a pretty, cheerful studio with everything one needs. A TV infront of the bed, washing… Continue reading
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DREAMCATCHING It was a rare gem of a day in the middle of November, when the sea calmed and the sun shone on the lush green grass around Schull.It was a day to watch the wildlife basking in the unexpected warmth,revelling in the absolute stillness, when the only noise was the chirping or the cawing or the screeching that they made, underpinned by a low rumble of the sea contentedly relenting and consenting to take it easy after the frenzy of the weekend storm.As if self conscious of how good it looked as a backdrop to the islands, it just lapped instead of roared and you knew that every living wild thing was out that day, finding the spot where the sun shone, the piece of fern that faced the sun, the treetop with a three sixty of world. It was this day I happened to visit the house my father built, the one of his dreams.The one that was being renovated, windows replaced, old shed removed, bedrooms extended to the rear. The builders must have thought it too nice to work that day,so I had free rein. I walked along the verandah to the front of the house and found the old barrel containing my mother’s Rosemary plant that managed to cascade blue flowers down its sides every year, surviving the westerly gales all winter long. I spied the vivid blue and tried to drag the whole plant out of the barrel. Not a hope that a plant that was so firmly ensconced would yield to my yanking.Instead I cut some of the hardwood and I’ll hope that I can nurture it in Corfu where I have struggled to cultivate it.Maybe this hardy version will survive the blistering heat better than the local varieties.In the end, the house was insignificant. It’s still there, still evidence of his dreams, of the place he called ‘Heaven on Earth’.What stayed with me was the trees that had grown into substantial thick trunked specimens, the birches forming a row along the driveway, their bare branches healthy and lying in wait for the spring when their buds will swell again.What stayed with me was the little Irish deciduous woods he created at the bottom of the front field, full of alders, weeping willows, weeping birch, oak , some pines and some trees I couldn’t identify. the extraordinary redbark of willows like a burst of colour against the green.I was amazed they hadn’t been razed. I know the love and care he poured into these trees, measuring them, trimming them, nurturing them.At the time of his death, they were established, but not the fine sturdy trees they are now.I walked around in a sort of trance,thinking of how he and my mother loved this place. but I wasn’t sad. I was happy that their legacy has lasted. I don’t want to know if the new owners ever tear down his trees. I want to remember them as they are now. Every tree that is planted looks to the future. Every tree makes a difference to the landscape, never knowing when to stop getting higher. We have to tell them that. we have to say, grow to the left, we have to say, that third branch will stunt your central core and we cut out that superfluous branch.I know that my father , who collected seeds everywhere he went, and my mother who had green fingers are connected to this beautiful heartstopping area in a way that will never end.
Seeing how the trees my father planted have grown.Memories of his dream Continue reading
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Book Review
Anything But Yes, by Joie Davidow In two hundred and thirty eight pages of exquisite prose, Davidow tells a compellingstory of a young Jewish woman, Anna, cruelly torn from her close-knit, loving family at the age of eighteen, and thrown… Continue reading
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naples to Syracuse in one week
Its no joke. Naples to the south of Sicily in a Fiat 500 and back again in seven days. To us, ‘trapped’ onthe glorious Isle of Corfu, it seemed like plenty of time. From the North to South of Corfu,… Continue reading
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Day 6 Desert Lodge and Sossusvlei
We are on the edge of the Namib/ Naukluft National Park. Just a huge expanse of sand, where an amazing amount of wildlife manages to exist. The Sossusvlei is an area of extraordinary beauty – red dunes blown in strange… Continue reading
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We Were Going to Do a Duet
Paul Simon on Shane McGowan Shane McGown, one of Ireland’s best known singers and composers died on the 29th November 2023. On 1st December,Paul Simon went on air with Ireland’s afternoon chat show, Liveline, hosted by Joe Duffy. He had… Continue reading
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Day 5 Namib desert
Exploring the dunes of Sossuviel, Namibia Continue reading
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Day 4 Fish River Canyon
Driving through Namibia to the Namib desert. Stopping at Fish River Canyon. Continue reading
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Day 3 Gariep river
Travelling from South Africa into Namibia, staying beside the Gariep River Continue reading
AH SURE AZURE 