First of all Happy New Year to you all! Doesn't 2023 feel like a date from some futuristic science fiction novel. Amazingly it is now 55 years since 2001 A Space Odyssey was first screened in Ireland. Even more astonishing is that all of the futuristic ideas in it were from a book by Arthur C. Clarke written in the 1950s. . . .
Solace, my new book
I am thrilled to announce that my new book SOLACE has been published by the O'Brien Press with a launch in the Book Centre, Waterford. It is now available in bookshops and online booksellers. (You can see what readers are saying here) 'Solace is that feeling of calm and comfort, that sense of peace that is all around us when we are . . .
10 years of blogging
So it's ten years since I posted my very first blog. Over the years the writing part has increased but the photography has always been the starting point. Each blog, and there have been hundreds, began with a walk or maybe a trip somewhere, and the images from my camera for that day. In those days, shortly after the . . .
A watery uncertain place
It's a watery uncertain place, this unfathomable universe. No need to plan or have too many expectations. Time instead to observe and go with the flow. At the close of 2020 there was a moon. It's not that I was following, but everywhere I turned, she was there. Even in the early morning as this moon set . . .
Winter creeps in
Only two weeks more of this, our second lockdown. First time around, Spring was in the air and there was some novelty to it. This time, winter creeps in and with Christmas on the horizon it's hard to even imagine how we will celebrate. The exciting news about vaccines this week has given us all a lift. I . . .
A word for 2019 from all my talking to trees
We see trees. What more do we need? Maira Kalman Here is 2019. The new beginning is a special time of the year. Darker days are good news for nerds and introverts allowing us maximum time to read and journal. I've been mooching about with spider diagrams and wanting to grasp every attractive idea that flies past my . . .
Reflecting on 2018
Christmas in Ireland this year was a grey and murky affair, with Atlantic soft weather pouring in from the west. As I write this we are in the twilight zone between years, so after the festivities were over it was time for reflecting on 2018 and thinking about what word to choose for 2019. I chose the word Threshold for 2018, in love . . .
On a chilly pier at dawn
I wonder at times why we don't get up and out for every dawn. When you are camping or sleeping in a tiny VW van at western the edge of Ireland, every sound tells you, the day is here! Get out of bed now! It starts with crows flying from their roost across the harbour to the Castle. I catch them crossing overhead from my . . .
The staycation; land, sea and me.
I've taken a break from this blog for a staycation; interwoven with salt water, forest bathing and butterfly spotting. It was hot in Ireland. I often sat under an umbrella, unable to put even one toe onto the baking sand. All the windows and doors had to be open wide, day and night. Everything scorched. The green turned to gold in the . . .
The light and the shade
Q. How many Irish Mammies does it take to change a lightbulb? A. Sure don't mind me I'll be grand in the dark. Irish joke So the snow eventually thawed, although for days it was banked up on both sides of the escape route. I didn't venture down to the lake but went to the highest . . .
