Some summers are golden; they are tanned legs, they are parched yellow grass, they are sunshine dancing a path on the ocean. Other summers are filled with the primary energy of blue and green; they are endless azure skies into which runner beans curl and stretch, they are hedgerows heavy with honeysuckle, they are jewelled … Continue reading Whiter Shade of Pale
I’m still in Ireland, spending time between two houses that are located close together, one perpendicular to the other, each with a flow of people coming and going as regular as the rise and fall of the tide. Coriander: that was the first thing the child called for at tea-time, which he got. Five minutes … Continue reading Neighbour
Yesterday, my friend and I walked the land around Ireland’s oldest linen fabric mill, Clarks of Upperlands, in Mid-Ulster. A section of it is still working after 300 years, but much of it is disused and abandoned, but for a few dog walkers, quiet explorers like ourselves, and more than the odd ghost. We walked … Continue reading Strolling With Ghosts
I love the part of being home that allows me to meet up with old friends, small reunions that taste so much sweeter after these long months of social confinement. The days of the open door and of ‘come on in’ have not quite returned, but the outdoor replacements – beaches and backyards, park benches … Continue reading Old Friends
He has learned my name, he says it over and over, calling me, his new playmate, to attention. If my name were the clutch of a car you would smell burning by now. He puts one hand on his hip, like a supermodel who has reached the end of the runway, and thrusts the free … Continue reading A Lesson
You would think I would have learned by now to temper my expectations. That, being from these parts, I’d have fashioned my character from stronger stuff. How I wish I had mastered the ability to rise above the suspended ceiling of grey, grim damp haze that has fallen in. By the hour I try in … Continue reading Please Stop Raining
I write this propped up in a strange bed. Four days strange, but welcoming, comfortable, quiet, and enveloping with its yellow sunflower bedcover. It’s my holiday haven. I look around and try to notice everything about being here, as it will soon be over, these moments gone, unlikely to be repeated. I still myself to … Continue reading This Moment
Slow travel: there’s a lot to be said for it, taking one’s time to get from there to here so that your head and your heart can keep pace with your body; so that the emotional you and the physical you arrive as one to your destination. My first stop is on the other side … Continue reading Never Been Gone
Occasionally, in a charity shop, I will see what, clearly, has been someone’s life collection, and I will pause to nurse a couple of seconds of heartbreak that this is where it has ended up. Thimbles: I saw about sixty of those once, porcelain, in a wooden cabinet all divided into tiny squares, a home … Continue reading Collection
‘That's the trouble with reality, it's taken far too seriously.’ It’s line from a song that’s trapped in my head, dancing around in there as I encourage its sentiment to take root. Back in the nineties an Irish band called An Emotional Fish had a hit song, ‘Celebrate’ and that’s what the line is from. … Continue reading The Trouble With Reality
