Periwinkles and caviar

Here's the spring posting. Bumble bees! Big buzzing in the Grove, a queen taking an early drink from yellow crocuses and white hellebore.

Two weeks of dry weather meant I could finally do some weeding. Just in time - it's been impossible in the garden since god knows when - this time last year probably. The veg garden isn't too bad as I cover that with black polythene, but the ornamental garden fills up with creeping buttercup and creeping grass creeping creeping everywhere.

It was cold though! Weather from the east. Breezes on which I swear I could smell the mountains of Greece and Turkey. Full thermals and woolly hat weather. But dry. Oh joy.

Rained again this week though. The up side of that is warmth, and at least the ground is no longer saturated. A bucket a day keeps the weeds at bay.

The lesser celandine is another creeper, but so pretty and one of the earliest flowers in spring. You mustn't mind thinking hemorrhoids of course when digging them out. All those little roots giving it the name pilewort. I rather think I wrote about that at length last year, so won't go into it again. 

There are many hazel trees in and around my garden, very useful when coppiced, the tall straight branches shooting skywards from the base. I cut them for bean poles, trying, but generally failing, to remember to cut them before the sap rises as they last longer.

I also have a Corylus avellana Contorta. It has two common names: contorted hazel or the less uncomfortable corkscrew hazel. It could make a good measure of personality - contorted or corkscrew, glass half full or glass half empty.

These hazels, unlike their straight cousins, are very slow growers. They send out sports at regular intervals, trying to catch up with the other family members, but they don't succeed. Snip snip with the secateurs (or chop chop with the loppers), otherwise the head of branches will corkscrew no longer, an Irish dancer without her ringlet wig.











 



A couple more photos to complete the early spring picture - primroses and variegated periwinkle.

 


And finally where would we be without these sparkling jewels, this caviar of the garden pond:

The period of amphibian bacchanalia seems to have been shorter this year, with frogspawn after about a week. The frogs started singing later than last year too. Less time for romance. 


Looks like we're in for a good batch of froglets anyway.

The underneath

Winter Solstice has been out of the water for the longest period since we brought her to Ireland. She was lifted at the end of October and has been in Eamonn Egan's shed in Portumna ever since. We're seeing the bare hull for the first time.

The hull is in excellent condition apart from a couple of spots that need repairing on the water line - the reason she's out of the water. That will be a relief when lying awake in my berth on a sleepless summer evening imagining things.

Underneath with layers and layers of paint on the keel:

 And in full:

Oh! And look at this:

Snap!

Joe had a significant birthday this week and after months of subterfuge (on my part) we took a trip to Reggie Goodbody's workshop in Dromineer, Co Tipp, where the half model of Winter Solstice was unveiled.

A happy reaction:

Actually I haven't posted the really happy reaction because he looks a bit mad in it. In a good way.

The half model is up on the wall in a place we can admire all its handmade detail.

New Year floods and ectoplasm

This was taken just beyond the weir beside the River Weaver in Nantwich, Cheshire, where Joe and I spent Christmas. Directly ahead at the end of the pathway there used to be a huge mill, burned down in the seventies when a stray firework dived inside.

The swans are enjoying the flood. We decided not to cycle through this - back-to-front to boating lore, where if swans are bottom-up you know it's too shallow for a cruiser, if swans are swimming it's too deep for a bicycle.


There was an unexpected connection to home when we were visiting Joe's mother in Hayes, Kent. Joe pulled out three old books from under the sideboard, published in the early 1950s.

It's monkeys I think of first when I see the name capuchin, which I suppose says something about my upbringing, but of course this Annual was produced by the Order of Capuchin Friars. The Capuchins are a branch of the Franciscan Order, recognisable from their russet brown habit with long pointed hood (capuce). It was the hood that gave them what began as a nickname. The friars' range is worldwide, but the monkeys only live in Central and South America, and were named by explorers after the friars. I have to say it's a stretch of the imagination to see the resemblance between friars and monkeys, but I suppose if you were in uncharted (and presumably terrifying) jungle in the 15th century, you'd be looking for connections with home.

So this is the photo I found in the Annual:

You can just see the caption which says 'Mountshannon, Co Clare'.

It's clearly the main street, but I'm not sure in which direction. I'll have a proper look next time I'm there in daylight.



We were lucky to not get caught in floods when we were travelling around the country visiting family and friends. All the way up the A1(M) from London to Leeds just before the New Year we were hearing of 20 mile-plus diversions in towns to left and right, roads closed due to flooding.

In Leeds we went on a New Year's Eve quest for cocktail glasses with Joe's cousin Siobhán. This was the post-midnight result:

I don't recall trying to contact the Other Side but there you go. The medium appears to be at work. I'd say that's ectoplasm wobbling up by the curtain.


There's some fabulous countryside around Leeds, so on New Year's Day Siobhán and I went off with the dog to Chevin Forest Park. So did the rest of the world and her husband, but it was wonderful anyway. Plenty of space to almost think you were alone. Great views and enough fresh air to revitalise.

So here we are creeping back into the light. The birds are singing and the broccoli is sprouting. The gods and goddesses are in their heavens.

Long Walk Lament

Each leg of the table in this photo has under it a terrine/bread tin containing the paté Joe had just made. Covering each tin of paté is a custom-cut and smoothed piece of wood from the shed. On top of the table is a weighty pyramid pressing down on the wood and therefore the paté. This is a method passed down from father to son which I think is rather lovely.

The paté - made from the pork we had in the freezer got from a neighbour as a whole pig (though butchered and cured etc before entry into our freezer) - is now ready and is delicious, especially the one with prunes.

It had prunes it in as has everything this Christmas - well, I exaggerate of course, but many things contain prunes. They were bought to go in the Christmas pudding, there were plenty of them so became ingredients in the mincemeat. I'm sure there was something else too, but anyway there are still some left...

I had to make two lots of mincemeat. The first, the traditional one, contained suet which I thought was gluten free until I checked the box to see if the remaining suet should go in the fridge (there to wait until it grew a fur coat before being pronounced dead enough to throw away). Fortunately a friend gave Joe and I a copy of Nigella Christmas last year which turns out to be a delightful book. I'm not familiar with Nigella except for the fact that she appears a lot on telly and is rather beautiful. Her suet-free mincemeat is quick to make and delicious. I'm hoping her Christmas pudding will be equally tasty, but we'll have to wait and see for that one.

The cake is made too, but damn it I haven't iced it yet. Must do that tomorrow. However, the marzipan is already glued in place with marmalade so the icing (a cheat's one in a packet) shouldn't take long to do.

If by any chance I have any regular readers they may have noticed I got clamped - unfairly! in Galway a couple of weeks ago. I appealed. This is what happened:

Long Walk Lament

‘The onus is on you to display’, they say

in the poe-faced standard letter reply.

‘We have your money and we’ll not give it back’.

The clampers have clamped. That’s that.

A breath of fresh air from Galway Bay

breezed through the open car door,

flipped the ticket so dutifully bought

to show a blank, not time and day.

The window sticker marked me a cheat,

‘Clamper Man that’s not fair! It’s not!

I fed the voracious ticket machine,

so release me, please, from this lock’.

‘You’ll pay eighty euros to be unfettered

or spend the night perched on the kerb,

someone probably gave you the ticket,

appeal if you like, you won’t be heard’.

I write a letter, ticket enclosed

(a scanned-in copy of course)

but ‘No!’ they say, ‘No exceptions,

our rules will be enforced’.

So parkers beware the draft through the door,

the ticket tipped up or blown over.

No decency left in clampers of wheels,

they want your cash and that’s that.

I have sent them another letter with threats of the Small Claims Court. I'm not holding my breath.

Winter Fix and Waxwings

Getting a fix of the water while Winter Solstice rests in Eamonn Egan's shed in Portumna. This is Mountshannon on a cold sunny Saturday. Very quiet. Two boats only on the Yacht Club's swinging moorings - the rest are clustered in the Club yard, dozing til their spring reawakening.

There was a new arrival in the harbour:

The huge barge on the right is Argo Sneek, a resident of Shannon Harbour for many years. It's like a proper house inside, beautifully fitted out. A lovely houseboat. Not sure how it would fare in a bit of rough.

At the other side of the harbour there was a surprising sight - I could see the jetties. This is the Council-owned part of the harbour, and has always been chocka with gently rotting boats. Flynn, who I posted about a couple of months ago, was here for a few years. Another, which eventually sank, was here for twelve. The sunken boat was, astonishingly, bought, raised and taken away. So look at this while you can:

Come the spring it will doubtless be hogged again.

The lake was flat calm and empty except, no, a boat coming in.

On Sunday evening we were in Mountshannon again, first for the Trad for Teens session a couple of we music teachers have set up, then for an event in The Snug - a fundraiser for the White-tailed Eagle Trust (part of the Golden Eagle Trust). These sea eagles are still living on Lough Derg but I have yet to see more than an outline of one in a tree on the island through a very powerful birding telescope.

However! Today in my garden were four Waxwings eating rosehips from the wild rose and pecking at apples in the big tree outside my sitting room window.

(this is not my photo)

There's an influx of these exotic-looking birds in the UK and Ireland at the moment. Eighteen were spotted at Bunratty in South Clare. They are winter visitors from Scandinavia, but I've never seen one in my garden before.

Winter vigil

A sign of winter. This is Common Bistort, a native perennial that is the first to collapse when the frost hits. This relative of the Dock was also known in Ireland as Snakeroot or Snakeweed, presumably because the rhizomatous roots resemble snakes, although I can't say I've noticed it myself. Thinking about it, though, perhaps this is what people imagined snakes looked like, having never seen them, the good St Patrick having done such a good job of getting rid of them.

Bistort was traditionally plucked when going on a journey, while saying a charm that described it as 'the first herb the Virgin Mary took into her hand.' This does seem a little unlikely, it growing (according to my Wild Flowers of Britain and Northern Europe) in European countries north of the Mediterranean, but perhaps someone had imported it.

Here's how the bistort looked in the summer when it was full of buzzy things:

I found the bit about Bistort and Mary in a wonderful book I have called Irish Wild Plants, Myths, Legends and Folklore. There's a big section on Ragwort too, a plant with jagged leaves and pretty yellow daisy-flowers that is poisonous to livestock. It's also the home to a gorgeous little stripey caterpillar that turns into the exotic Cinnabar moth. And also, according to Irish Wild Plants, the alternative form of transport for witches and warlocks who can't lay their hands on a broomstick. Here's a bit of a Robbie Burns poem describing the goings on:

Let warlocks grim, an' wither'd hags,
Tell how wi' you on ragweed nags,
They skim the muirs an' dizzy crags,
Wi' wicked speed.

I'd never realised ragwort was the speedster of the witchy world.


I put out bird nuts yesterday. Another sign of winter. This morning there was one great tit and one chaffinch, but word got out. Just before lunch there were four great tits, three chaffinches and a robin.

I put all the terracotta tubs into the greenhouse too. All those that haven't already half disintegrated in previous frosts, held together by roots and good luck.


In Galway on Thursday. A lovely day, mild and bright. Coffee and gluten-free chocolate brownie upstairs in McCambridge's, then a hair cut, a spot of lingerie shopping (Marks and Spencer for knickers ha ha), pop the M & S bag onto the back seat of the car which was parked on the Long Walk. Just to right in the picture below, outside the cream building.

Off to my poetry workshop, cup of tea afterwards, back to the car in time to catch the 4.45 limit on the ticket. And I'm clamped! I couldn't believe it. Clamped. I've never been clamped before. I'm the sort of person who frets about being late for my ticket, and having everything paid up. Turns out the ticket had flipped over - must have been when I put the shopping bag into the car, because I checked it when I first left the car. But I still had to pay €80 to get unclamped. Put the price of the knickers up a bit.

I've appealed, of course. Sent off a letter and all that. We'll see if they give me my money back.

We were in Galway again last night for the Savita Halappanavar vigil. A moving event watched by a sliver of new moon. 

From water to wheels

Winter Solstice is out of the water in Eamonn Egan's shed in Portumna, drying out for repair work on the hull. So we're in our winter travelling vehicle. We began the October weekend in Galway, parked down at the docks with several other vans, most of which were from the North. I was reading a poem at the launch of Crannóg magazine in the Crane Bar and we'd planned an early night but then The Lazy Blues Band came on and we couldn't tear ourselves away. Great, foot-tapping music. They play at the Crane the last Friday of every month and we're planning to go again.

Spiddal with friends on Saturday night after a lunchtime poetry launch. My friend Kevin O'Shea's first collection The Art of Non-Fishing is just published with Doire Press, and a fine book of poems it is. The sun shone, we pootled about on our bicycles, had a walk on the beach at Furbo before dinner and watched the Aran Islands appear to levitate.

Then Sunday. Wind. Rain. Would we continue on to Westport and keep in place our plans for cycling along some of the Great Western Greenway? The forecast for Monday was good, but could we trust it? In the end we did. Drove cross country to Killary Harbour, then through the mountains past Doo Lough to Louisburgh. It rained. And rained. And wild wind. But it was still spectacular. Out from Louisburgh is Roonah Point where the ferries leave for Clare Island and Inishturk. The Clare Island ferry was coming in. Beam-on waves and rocking wildly. Into the tiny harbour, turning in its own length, passengers ashore and taken on board. Put our little escapades on Lough Derg in a Force Five into perspective.

We found the camper van spot in Westport down at the harbour.

The sky cleared ready for Monday and we were all set for Achill Island, a place of bog and mountain and great stretches of beach where the dogs ran about and rolled in the sand. They won't go in the water though. Fresh-water dogs these. They tasted the salt once and now keep well clear from that weird stuff.

Next an attempt at coffee in a beach-side hotel. It was what was happening on the beach that attracted us, not the somewhat scruffy look of the hotel.

I've made this beg so you can see these are not birds flitting about above the waves but kites, and attached by lines beneath them are surfers scooting from side to side across the white water. They appeared to have perfect control of their direction, turning back and forth. Inside the hotel the remains of many breakfasts littered the dining-room tables. The kite surfers were staying here. The coffee arrived in a teapot and the smell wasn't encouraging. A whole pot of instant coffee.

We left and went to the Beehive in Keel. Ordered afresh. But it was worth it to see these kite surfers.

From Keel on the south of Achill we took the road signposted Keem Strand. The road went up and up, sheer drop to the left (Joe was driving) with no barrier at all.
'Keep your eyes on the road for god's sake,' I muttered, keeping mine there too. Spectacular views be damned. I had to will us to stay on the road, for in circumstances such as this the van, though normally good at staying in a straight line, would surely take it into its head to swerve over the edge, Joe powerless to stop it.

The view from the other side, though, was stunning.

And finally to the Great Western Greenway. We began at Mulranny and cycled towards Newport. This stretch was 18 km long, but we'd only be able to do part of it, not wishing to leave the dogs in the van for too long. In the end we turned here after 11 km.

What joy to have a dedicated off-road path. The only hazard was other cyclists. There were whole families with baby in a bike trailer and little children on a tandem-type affair or on their own mini-bikes. People on rental bikes (doing one way with a pick-up at the end). Serious cyclists two abreast and not moving over. Hi viz jackets everywhere. Sunshine. Smiles. Grimaces as the unfit staggered up the hills pushing their bikes.