Giving thanks...for comets, and water, and other things...

Ison - as it was

It's the shortest day. Direct opposite of the longest day. How lucky we are to experience both - the preciousness of light on this the shortest day, and the splendour of the seemingly endless light that creeps towards midnight on the summer solstice, and all that glorious warming sunshine. 

I'm presently at home alone with the two ladies and my imagination is captured by thoughts of Comet Ison - a comet that was due to pass by Earth a few weeks ago. Comet Ison was to potentially deliver access to elusive information about big issues - such as how life on Earth began, where did all the water on come from? Basic stuff like that ;) Did all the Earth's water come from the water that is locked up in comets and then released on their impact with the Earth over millions of years? Or, are complex molecules - such as amino acids - created in comets? Scientists have proven in the lab that the nuclear energy created by the impact of a comet on the Earth is sufficient to re-organise the bonds and atoms in simple molecules, to form more complex molecules that require high energy inputs, and ultimately to form some of the basic building blocks of life...like amino acids, the stuff proteins are made of and the like. If they - all those comets - hit the Earth and that caused amino acids to be formed....well, use your imaginations. Life on Earth - sure, but life elsewhere? Why not - just not as we know it. Mind boggling. Check out details of the Rosetta Mission for your own learning. Sadly, Comet Ison burned out when it was passing by the sun and we lost the chance to study and analyse in greater detail. So be it - but so disappointing for all the scientists looking forward to getting their gloved paws on precious rare data that would - that might - answer questions that are fundamental to the origins of life on Earth. 

It's tough being a scientist - first of all you're expected to know everything, when really your doctorate degree only qualifies you to understand how very little you know about even the most simplest and fundamental of questions about life. And yet we see it all around us, unquestioning in its being - we see it as we know it: life. It's there in our varied cultures, traditions, Christmas, seasons, families, love, beauty, nature, music.....it makes one feel incredibly small and incredibly insignificant in a vast universe, in a less vast galaxy, in a small solar system and on a beautiful yet (relatively speaking) teeny, weeny, blue green planet - Earth. It certainly makes me feel incredibly small and incredibly grateful. Grateful for the big things - like the Earth itself, and the water and the air and all those things we take for granted everyday - and grateful for the small things - the small things like....

• A fleeting glimpse of the sun on a solstice morning
• A bright blue sky tinged by pink on the distant horizon
• The rain falling
• The smell of fresh bread baking 
• Alannah's smile
• An unexpected kiss on the back of the neck from the one you love
• The wagging tail on a very happy Holly dog when she can't contain her excitement at getting to go for a run through the woods
• Christmas lights
• Time with dear friends that you only ever get to see at Christmas
• The warmth of your kitchen as you listen to the wind blow and the rain fall outside
• And most of all, the promise of more to come...

Happy Solstice and of course Happy Christmas everybody!

The Darkest Days

And so we have come to the darkest days. It happens every year and yet it always amazes me - all that uncompromising and dependable cyclic nature of the seasons (that is of course ignoring the impending prospect of ongoing climate change, but no doom and gloom in this post!). It's a harsh beauty - all that distancing from the sun leading to a dark and cold time, counter balanced by Christmas lights and beautiful frosty mornings...but all to be reversed come Saturday and the winter solstice (yay). 

'tis the season to be Holly

And why so harsh? Harsh because there is a stark absence of green and yellow and orange and red - the palette of the autumn that we love to watch in the easy days of October and November. Now there is only brown, grey, green and a tinge of blue - brown on the ground, grey on the trunks, some green in the trailing ivy (deceptively widespread in the woods and welcome shelter for blackbird and smaller woodland bird species) and blue in the sky, but blue only ever for precious minutes when the sun peeps over the horizon and the sky is refreshingly clear of grey clouds.  The storms of the last few weeks have completely stripped the oaks and the beech of the Charleville woods and the leaves are rapidly disintegrating back into the earth - the very fabric of the stuff that will bring forth next year's pale green recruits. Fresh faced leaves that will be ready for a season of turning light and carbon dioxide gas into food for the colossal stems that support them - the giant wooden towers of beech and the king oaks. I know - amazing really. Those small and unassuming power houses of green energy that turn light into sweet sugar. And all because of chloroplasts....but, I digress into the minutia...

It's also harsh because we have to wrap up in warm clothes and blanket-like scarves to shut out the cold and the damp. Sandals no longer work and wellies are de rigeur. Holly doesn't bother with either of course - she is an all-weather and all-functional kind of girl. And Alannah is amazingly immune to the cold - she is wrapped up of course but these days she stays awake on our winter walks, staring up into the broken canopy. What is she thinking? She is obviously stunned into silence because at all other times she is cooing and gurgling and 'talking' in her own sweet way. I try to talk to her about the trees and the birds, and the red squirrel that we've met three times now - always scarpering up the same tree - but she is blissfully immune to my breaking the silence. And all the while she just stares with those beautiful blue eyes - her, silent. It's all waiting for her to discover. 

And what about the beauty? Well, apart from Alannah and the bold Holly, the beauty is in feeling the biting cold breeze as we walk through the open fields, the warmth of the blinding winter sun when the clouds break and the feeling that spring is beckoning already - it's there in the knowing song of the blackbird - waiting beyond these darker, damper days. 

And what else do we do these days apart from get into the thick of it in the wintery woods? Very little I'm afraid. Bringing up baby is very basic - feeding, changing, bathing, coaxing to sleep, entertaining, distracting and then a bit of writing and emailing for me when I get a chance - laptop balanced on a cushion and writing with one hand over a sleeping baby. Some highlights of the past few weeks - the walking in the woods and the hinterlands of provincial Irish towns of course (over 100miles of the 1000 target), a successful heart saving exercise for Alannah's granny (my mother), various jaunts into town to catch up with friends for pre-Christmas coffees, the launch of Paddy Woodworth's great book Our Once and Future Planet (more of that again), and meeting up with work mates at the annual Biodiversity Action meeting. 

Holly is such a kidder...

I guess the greatest highlight of all is being a passive onlooker to the wonder that is a child's pace of growing. She is standing, rolling, watching, giving orders and basically, increasingly, ruling the roost. However, I'm reminded by the experts in the field of mothering that this status quo must change in order for peace and balance to reign. And so once Christmas is over, we must all - Holly and No. 1 Dad included - develop the elusive and all important baby routine....we shall have wait and see. In the meantime we'll stick with the policy of going with the flow, however chaotic that is. It always seemed to be so much more fun to me...

Autumn's Fall

Holly Cottage roses

It's the last day of November. This is the day - for me - that hails the end of autumn and the true beginning of winter. And what a beautiful November it has been! We've been watching the leaves tumbling down from the high tops of the beech and oak trees that line the Charleville estate wall from the warmth of the Holly cottage kitchen. Some of those same leaves find themselves floating onto the Holly Cottage garden - leaf litter to add to the soil for next year's harvest. The few small tress that we have in the back garden - probably more like shrubs to tall people ;) - provide a hint of autumnal colour too but one more blast of wind next week and all the leaves will finally have tumbled down. And then the long wait begins, again...autumn falls as winter calls. We already had a taste of snow, but that's always lovely, for a day...especially against the backdrop of a red rose...

News here is pretty scant. It's sleep, walk, feed baby, change baby, walk baby (and dog), and then do that all over again and then finally get some downtime once herself conks out for the night - usually around 9:15-9:20pm most evenings. How does she know that it's the same time every night? Baffling really.

Holly on her leafy way

The walking is good - beautiful even. Some days I find myself walking over the fields and wishing that 'it" would never end. 'It' = this time, this phase, this life - you get the message. And the days are so dry  that we get out and into the woods with barely a splash of mud on our leaf kicking boots. The leaves are piled high and Holly is chest deep - she's having great craic altogether sliding around and sprinting up and down the leafy paths. The pictures really don't do her wild spirit justice to be fair - she is a canine force to be reckoned with, especially on the sprinting u-turns. Apart from our usual woodland Charleville haunt, we've made it as far as Dublin's inner city (in a car mind), Belvedere House outside Mullingar and a short stroll about Middleton in Cork - showing herself off to the gran-aunts and cousins. We find different views everyday, different ideas, different perspectives. At this point we're up on 64/1000 miles...what adventures yet to come?

It's been extremely quiet on the garden front and for the first time in two months I made it out for a (blissful) hour yesterday while herself was carried away and comforted by the lull of the car's engine. Jobs done included - pulling dead leaves off cabbages and sprout plants; turning compost; pruning apple and roses back; pulling up sunflower plants (seeds good for the birds); cutting back last of the pepper plants and a an overall general tidy up and sweep. There's still a lot of food out there, and an equal lot in the freezer. The frozen tomatoes are a gift - add garlic, onion, fennel seeds, chilli and a couple of carrots and a delicious soupy treat is at your fingertips.

The other development here is that we've been baking our own brown soda-bread - no more shop bought convenience stuff. It's so easy and it's probably a bit embarrassing not to have been making it regularly before now, although the day job sure can chew a lot of energy and time - the joys of being at home nesting for the winter eh? Anyway, take 400g wholemeal flower, add 50g oatmeal and 50g of whatever you like ;) for example wheat bran, or other 'roughagey stuff', a teaspoon of baking soda and teaspoon salt - mix all together with a pint of buttermilk and one egg. All goes in a loaf tin @ 200deg for an hour or so. Lovely crunchy crust emerges with deliciously wheaten goodness - great with the soup - and we add pumpkin and sunflower seeds when available in the press for more crunch. Beats anything shop bought and freezes well too. And I'm afraid to say it might just even beat the bread my mother has been making for the past fifty odd years...

As for herself - it's smiles all around and plenty of chat. Nearly, teasingly, sleeping through the night. We shall have to see how we go. Twelve weeks yesterday and truly, truly the new boss of the Holly Cottage...not sure who was the old boss.....but I guess that really doesn't matter anymore now ;)

A Journey of 1000 miles

The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step

Lao Tzu (604 BC - 531 BC)

The first step marked by blue skies,
not North American but Irish Birch

I must confess my ignorance on this one - I had no idea that this quote came from Lao Tzu, he being  of Chinese philsopher and poet renown. An alternative translation from the Chinese (Bynner 1944) would read as here at your feet a thousand-mile journey have birth. It's an apt saying for all of us taking on new projects, new challenges or setting about making a change in our lives. The first step is taken with the idea in our minds and then if the idea is to come to fruition, feet begin to move step by step forward, onward and onward, inching closer and closer to the goal at the end of the proverbial 1000 mile mark. 

Most of our days here are defined by walking -  walking to the woods, walking up the town, walking around the garden. One of the main reasons I was attracted to this house all those three years ago was its proximity to the woods - a place where a walker could go everyday with a boisterous Holly and always see something new. Or see something that is the same thing yet completely different from a change in perspective depending on my own outlook, or my own frame of mind. So when a call to walkers was issued by a colleague in Chicago to embark on a 1000 mile journey, well of course my interest was piqued. The call comes from Liam Heneghan - ecologist and writer - of DePaul University, Chicago. Liam draws inspiration from the walking of Robert Llyod Praeger. Prager (1865-1953) - for those outside of Ireland - was the veritable godfather of all Irish naturalists and an inspiration to all of us who passed through the Botany Departments of Irish Universities since the 1950s.  You can read all about him in Liam's article. Liam's call is to all interested in walking and those with a keen naturalist's eye - no expertise or qualifications necessary. The call is to walk in the spirit of Praeger in your chosen area - it can be urban or rural or somewhere in between - and marvel at the small things you might otherwise have overlooked in a less attentive mode. There is already a growing community of walkers that can be followed under the #1000UrbanMiles on Twitter. 

Through a portal of Hazel
12/11/2013

For our part, it will be a matter of walking where we can, when we can. For the most part it will be Alannah, Holly and myself but I do hope to rope others in along the way. We consciously became part of the #1000UrbanMiles community last Tuesday, and in the interest of accuracy I have added the #1000IrishMiles to make a clear distinction between the urban streets of Chicago and greater USA cities and the highways and byways of my own Irish countryside. I confess that I am no Praeger and I don't find myself  stopping to identify every last moss and liverwort as I go, despite my great training under the UCD Botany and Zoology Departments (when they existed back somewhere in the 1990s). But I do appreciate everything I see, and I hope to meet others along the way that can point out the more subtle minutia of interest that my macro lens overlooks. And 1000 miles is nothing really - nothing over a year. And walking is such a transformative process, beta brainwaves turning into alpha brainwaves and all that stuff. That is of course once you remember to switch the mobile device off so the ringtones don't upset the perfect wave forms. 

Now if we were to run it, well that would be another story altogether....

Sunday Morning

Sunday morning, brings the dawning

It's just a restless feeling by my side
(Reed, Cale) 

And here we are. It's a cold Sunday morning and we awake in the dark. Nothing new there - the dark still reigns supreme at 6.30am, only beginning to lighten when the hour of seven is well established. Alannah is an early riser and as a perk of being mother, I get to watch (with her) the sunlight coming back around every morning. Some days it is bright and golden, with the light reflecting off the amber coloured beech trees that line the Charleville estate walls, and some days it is dark and damp with light barely making an impression behind heavy grey clouds that block out life-giving-sun's light. How different from the summer when light was barely gone for more that a few hours, and when getting up at 5am seemed like the wisest thing to do to ensure we didn't miss an ounce of all those glorious June mornings and hot afternoons.

Woodland winter palette awesomeness

But best to stay in the moment, in the here and now. Best not to linger in the past summer months or waste precious winter wishing for the brighter days to come. Best to embrace the dark and welcome it for what it brings. For this is the dark time, the winter dreaming. Time to think, time to read and time to process thoughts and ideas and images of the year gone by. Time to rest the body but feed the mind. Time to kick up fallen leaves and enjoy the winter silence. 

Here in the Holly Cottage, the pace of life has slowed down by a level or ten. We wake early and pull the blinds, waiting and watching as the light comes back to illuminate the now very quiet garden. The winter garden is now the stronghold of bold robin, brave wren and stoic blackbird, as we - less graceful humans - step back and leave  them to it, letting the soil breathe its heavy winter sighs and yield whatever sustenance it can to our hungry feathered friends. Green manure has been sowed on bare soil to hold and nourish it in the springtime; half the spuds are out of the ground and hardy brassicas and root vegetables are left to wait it out. The Setanta spuds are sadly, but surely, widely and badly damaged by burrowing slugs, who found a nice damp  home inside the nourishing starchy homes in an otherwise un-slug friendly summer. We think - we hope - the Sarpo axona variety fared better - they are much smaller in size but seem to have been less attractive to the cunning slime-mongerers. There are still some beetroots left in the ground, along with parsnips and turnips ripe for the stewing and roasting. But the most beautiful of all things green in the garden at this time are the bulging winter cabbages, sown early last spring and almost completely forgotten about under a wire net until a few weeks ago when we started looking round for what was left to eat. We won't go hungry ;) 

Most of the day is spent in the Holly Cottage kitchen now, escaping to the leaf littered woods when we can. Holly is making herself sick on acorns but I can only hope that someday she will learn. While  Holly forages, Alannah is beginning to take a peek at the world outside from the safety of the baby carrier. Sometimes I look down to check she is still with us and I see her bright blue eyes watching the scene as we walk past giant oak and tumbling pines. What must she think of it all? What impressions and what cascade of neural networks are becoming established as her brain is processing all this new information?

All this got me thinking, more. And so the last week I have been delving back into old philosophy books and trying to re-assemble thoughts and theories that get squeezed out of focus when the mind is in work drive. The work of Socrates, Buddha, Descartes, Spinoza, Schelling, Hegel, Hume, Kant and Nietzsche - not to mention Darwin - all these names and ideas are buzzing around my head as I distill and decant and try to see the world from their perspectives, making sense of my own. It's fascinating how thinking changes through the centuries, and yet I find that the fundamental truths and realities stay the same. Each one of us must make our own sense of it, and this is one of the most exciting and sometimes frightening aspects of being human - that we can make sense of it, or at least that we can try and wonder in awe at the whole thing as we do.  Like Lou Reed and John Cale's poetic reflection of a Sunday morning. 

Sunday morning girls

She is thriving of course - two months last Wednesday and grown out of her newborn wardrobe completely, filling the three month sleep suits more and more.  Pink is her favourite colour at the moment, mixed up with white and purples and lilacs. A marked contrast to the yellows and greens of the wood, she strikes a defiant pose as bright pink bundle as we stroll through that earthy palette of autumn-come-winter temperate woods. 

Time to get back out into it, this time with Lou Reed's voice echoing in her ears and in my heart. Thanks Lou (1942-2013) - how beautiful you are. Play it loud ;) 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pnGoIF5N_-Y

Letter to Alannah

This article first published in Elephant Journal yesterday...

http://www.elephantjournal.com/2013/10/letter-to-alannah-catherine-wilkie/

Alannah…..a leanbh, from the Gaelic phrase for dear child

Dear Alannah

Today you are all of 6 weeks old, and this is a benchmark day for both of us. For you, it is the magic marker where all the experts say that you are settling into ‘yourself’ and ‘settling down’ – settling into what I wonder? I assume this means growing accustomed to life outside the womb - the power house of all human life; getting used to life beyond the selfless placenta and the clever umbilical cord that kept you nourished and sated for the 40 odd weeks that you were a passenger in my body. It’s only now that I can begin to appreciate the huge changes that you’ve experienced already in your very short life – from unborn to shell-shocked newborn and now to cradle-wise six week old, feeling your way in a brand new world. Sometimes I wish that I could ask you what you see and how you feel, but it’s enough that you trust us to guide and guard you through this time, this becoming.

Keeping a tight grip on the world 

When you were born, I watched you tumbling out of me and all I could say in response to those midwives frenetically commentating around me – to register my awareness for them and assure them that I was with it - was ‘oh my god’. The words were spoken softly and quietly, almost to myself – a dramatic contrast to the cries of the mother seconds before that had accompanied those last, desperate pushes. There was no more crying after that; all the tremendous pain was forgotten - straight onto the next chapter. I watched the scene as they presented you to me as if it was an out of body experience and I remained outside. There you were, part covered in sticky white vernix and the rest of you underneath all pink and wonderfully alive. I was stunned, shocked, silenced, the sound box muted.

What was next? After all that time getting through pregnancy, getting from one week to the next, psyching myself up for labour, getting through the shopping list of must-haves and basic needs to see you through those first few days, and most importantly - staying calm (daily pranayama and meditation without breath retention was a powerful aid).

And then you were there.

They – the heroic midwives - left us alone together, all bunched up on the delivery bed, our first meeting together – you, your father and I. We gazed into your bright blue eyes gaping wide as they took in the light for the first time. What was that like Alannah? Your first breath – your first gasp of air? The first sensation of cold versus warmth as they weighed you naked and checked to make sure you were perfect and then brought you shivering and crying to my chest. Nestling there under soft pink cotton shirt against my skin that was warm and tanned from sitting in the garden while waiting for you all summer long - you lay there and took it all in. You, newborn warrior - no fear, no worry, no concerns despite your complete and utter helplessness and dependence upon on us, the newborn parents.

Those first few days in the hospital you kept a firm grip on both us – your father held you in his arms for as long as he could and then in the night time when everyone was sent home, we got to know each other. We sat together, we lay down together, we walked around the room together and mostly we had cuddles together – both of us learning about a closeness and a nurturing that neither of us could fathom the depth of in that brief and magical first few days. We were both just following instinct, as we still are.

Since that time you’ve never been more than 50 yards from me – just about the distance from the kitchen to the bottom of the garden or from one end of the shop to the other, safe in your loving father’s care on our brief excursions to the outside world. You have met the rest of your family, and some of your neighbours too, and you have enraptured them with your alertness and those eyes that hypnotise the beholder and slow time as you work your newborn magic.  From early morning, hunger takes precedence and that must be satisfied. But feeding is followed by quality ‘you time’ when you are enthroned in your chair to watch white and steel gray clouds move rapidly past and cover the great glowing fireball in the sky in this very wet and very Irish October. This is the time when you explore your own ability to make sounds and I imagine you are matching them to the abstract paintings that the sky has gifted for you.

Your newly developed smiles are enough reward for the fragmented sleep sessions and the constant care that you must receive these days. The constant demands don’t bother me. Time spent before is left in the past, and what will come will come, but this is my job – my only cause for attention - for now.

And other rewards? There is the utter peace and calm when you are latched on feeding with such naturalness and sheer infant grace that all I can do is gaze down into your eyes hypnotized, while allowing your fumbling fingers to wrap around my own giant sized thumb. When we are like this, I say to myself and to you that this is only the beginning, that in some shape or form I will hold your hand all the days that I can – for all the days that are left of my life. Because I am yours and you are mine – not in some crazy psychotic way – but in the only way that matters for a mother and a daughter. Because that is what we are now – I am mother, and you are daughter. I wonder sometimes did my own mother feel the same or did she have that luxury in her world where there were already three that came before? I doubt it.

And what of me? Today is the end of the six weeks and I ‘should’ be completely and totally ‘healed’ of the whole experience of pregnancy and childbirth. The obvious external wounds have healed, all thanks to the powers of the human body’s ability to self-heal. The internal changes I will assume to have been undone and all has reverted to the norm – all organs back in their place and squeezed intestines reverting to previous un-pinched strongholds. I still can’t believe that you were in there, living and growing inside me. Out of sight, yet presence made known by precious and intense phases of kicking and hiccupping – mostly at night, but enough assurance to send me to sleep smiling.

In these first six weeks it has been take it as it comes – the newness of it all. It is a case of focusing on the things that you need and what I must do to provide. Instinct has dictated so far, and I will continue to go with that. Sometimes it may be useful to call on the wisdom and experience of those who have gone before, but this is our journey and I have to trust that everything I need is in me, and everything that you need, you will tell me – in the only way that you can, and in the only the way that we will understand.

At some point in the future I will look back on this time and appreciate my own changes, my own becoming, my own journey as newborn mother. But for now, my gaze is held firmly in the present and my mind totally in this moment. As the days pass and turn to night and back again, as you feed and grow and become aware; as I listen, and learn and surrender, we are mindful together, mother and daughter. It leads me to wonder who is the student and who is the teacher?

Le míle grá a leanbh

Do Mhamaí

Pyjama Days (and a bit of food for thought)

These are days of rain and winds around the Holly Cottage. The tall beech trees that line the walls of Charleville are getting a beating up there in the sky kingdom of the tree crowns and the leaves are tumbling effortlessly down - spiralling down, down, down. Right now - to the south - the sky is smoky grey and there is a hint of a rainbow fading in. To the east the sky is bright and clear, the sun casting a golden hue on the rain and wind beaten trees to the south and west. 

We are cosied up inside, everyone still in pyjamas - for these are the pyjama days ;) Yesterday the rain kept us in until way past four so it was a popcorn-on-the-couch-with-movies day. Pyjamas were swapped in the late afternoon for a walk in the leaf strewn woods, only to be hit by a torrential shower that made it through the now, very patchy canopy to the three musketeers below - Holly sniffing out the trail and the acorns, Alannah sleeping in her chest pressed harness and me just getting soaked. All three happy out in the wind and rain and mud - lovely.   The emergency back up was called on though and we were rescued and brought back to the warmth of the Holly Cottage for tea and cakes. The cakes were left behind by a friend not seen in an age, and we had spent a good couple of hours catching up that morning while watching the wind battle with the trees and the rains fire on the roofs of houses beyond the Holly Cottage garden wall.

Big bear...

Today will probably be the same. We've been up a few times already of course. Alannah likes to feed through the night so I seem to be living in a sleep walking state - mental note: must try to get more sleep during the day, but then it always seems such a shame to miss the daylight hours, however rain soaked they are. We managed a few trips out the last week - shopping and browsing, going for lunch and outdoor coffees where possible. It's amazing how you start to see babies everywhere though - everywhere we go they seem to be 'taking over'. Apparently it's a symptom of having your own. It's hilarious as I step back and view the scene as I find myself comparing them all to Alannah or checking out the brand make of buggy or car seat. Such things were completely un-noticed in the past. Funny how things change. 

Not so big bear....?

As for herself - she's still growing, still feeding, still smiling. There are gurgles now and more little laughs - absolutely adorable. And most of the gurgling happens around the 3am/4am mark when really you are questioning your ability to function as you wrestle with (at other times) straight forward nappy changing. She's definitely more alert too - Alannah that is. I on the other hand seem to be slipping gradually into a permanent state of sleep deprived zombieness. Somebody somewhere called it a 'mombie' state and it's a good fit. We'll just take it as it comes. Holly's unfaltering loyalty, despite losing her place in the pack, has been a great relief and un-necessary cause for concern pre-arrival. And more importantly, the unconditional minding by Number 1 Dad is keeping us all safe and sane, fed and loved, laughing and miraculously good humoured, in the here in the now.

It hasn't been all just sleeping though. There's still harvesting in the garden - up on 10kg of red juicy tomatoes in the freezer now, bags of bright red chillis and crisp tasty apples in a bowl on the table for immediate consumption. Sweet peppers are nearly gone, they did best in the greenhouse while outdoor plants  are way behind and doubtful if the remaining hanging peppers will ripen - we shall see. Yesterday was also the day for slow cooking-down of the last of the green tomatoes into a delicious sweet chutney (http://hcottage.blogspot.ie/2012/10/shades-of-caribbean-roti-licious.html) while the man came close to a near-perfect hot pepper sauce. It's all about trial and error really, and every time you cook something it's different tasting. Maybe it's the mood you're in or maybe it's that extra shake of salt or pepper, or one too many scotch bonnets ;) It's all good whatever the outcome.

On another level, we've been watching a lot of youtube these days. In particular the work by the Zeitgeist Movement which is under the stewardship of social activist and musician Peter Joseph. Interesting yet slightly depressing stuff. Check it out for another perspective on global economics. I'm still digesting some of the material, but it it is certainly food for thought, particularly the stuff about the 'economic hitmen'. I always feel so naive and hoodwinked when I see or read about these things - and you question whether we are all puppets in a very corrupt system. It's a bank holiday so plenty of time to check it out, also check out John Perkins' book and website www.economichitman.com

And so, enjoy your pyjama days in the rain - sometimes it's good to just sit and watch the rain fall down. And as you sip on your tea and enjoy your cake shared with friends, take a different perspective and ask some questions about how you live and how you would like to live, and how you would like your society to be. Nothing heavy, just take it at your own pace. It's amazing what a change in perspective can do - you might even decide to change the world, but start big - start with yourself ;) That is if you feel you need it...

Fruit and nut (and some leaves too!) fall

Crunchy beech

It's a dangerous place these days - walking in the woods that is. You run the risk of either being caught in the line of fire of masses of acorns ready to surrender to the draw of the earth, or a shower of drying leaves that are destined to fall to provide the essential ammunition for earthworms and other recyclers of the forest trenches. It's a beautiful place now and even though I love summer, I love autumn best when it appears to us as it has done the last few days - mist-shrouded mornings followed by golden sunshine and leaf-kicking-perfect afternoons before red sky at night takes over just about teatime. 

It's back to walking every day now so no more just wishing I was out there. And there's a feast of colour to be found as reward - sloe and haw berries, acorns and chestnuts, and every shade of leaf on twig and branch and forest floor. Holly has developed a love of acorns so the walking is slowing down a bit as she snacks en route. Alannah is oblivious as she rides in the tight sling and buries her head in the warmth of mother or father's chest. I had to shield her head from unexpected acorn fire a few times - motherhood brings all sorts of new jobs and roles, some expected and most very unexpected! 

Time out from wandering the woods

We follow the same path most days - down the long oak lined avenue to Charleville Castle, off on a tangent to say hello to the majestic beech with abundance of crisp brown leaves carpeting our feet, up and over fallen ivy laden tumbled down pine trunks and then a sharp left turn before the crumbling gates of the castle, and then we tunnel uphill through infestuous (newly coined word for this blog) laurel that really shouldn't be there as it crowds all things of forest beauty out. And then, homeward bound we meander along the margins where oak and 'all sorts' forest meets barley fields and winter beet crops before we turn back onto the car-busy thoroughfare that links the outside world and the midlands small-town on whose edge we now live. 

We have an oasis of woodland and bark and leaf almost right outside our door - a paradise for otherwise housebound dogs that get loosed on weekends, a runners escape in all weathers, a kingdom of the acorn and sanctuary for newborn and new-become mother on sunny autumn days. 

Seeing red (and orange and yellow and purple and green)

Shades of delicious-ness

A sunny afternoon in the Holly Cottage and things are pretty much the same as my last post. I am living in a sort of groundhog day that changes only in terms of its name and the weather. I won't dwell on the detail as there's really not that much time and these days every minute counts. I reckon I have about ten minutes maximum before I will have to feed her and attend to her needs so I must write quick - please read at your own leisure though! 

As I write, Alannah is sitting in her chair and I have one foot on the ground and one foot rocking her so that she is always on the go. Babies are so helpless really - they can barely see what's in front of them and they really can do nothing for themselves. That helplessness will persist for a number of years from now...but then that's why we love them so much and are programmed to protect and nurture them for the rest of our lives. The good news is that she is growing rapidly - she grew twice as much as an average breastfed baby on her first week at home - I know, what is average? - and the ridiculously oversized newborn baby sleep suits that we had wrapped her up in that first week are now becoming snug and tight about her month old body. She's still tiny though, and still blue eyed - I'm waiting for the green to fade in so that she looks more like one of us :) Does anything prepare you for the first real smile though? There was a lot of 'is that wind, is that really a smile' when it really was just wind, but now it's definitely a smile. While I think that to her I am just the 'food trolley' and the most of her smiles are targeted at  her daddy - I do get the odd one and that's enough for me.

When I do manage to get outside - and last week with all that rain, it was a challenge for anyone - the colours of the moment are green and red, and varying shades of orange and yellow and purple. Let me start at the back of the garden and work up. The purple turnips are done - they were pretty massive and got way too big to be edible - they'll add to the compost though and to be honest while 'being pregnant', they really didn't appeal to my overly sensitised palate. The parsnips are still growing - I hope - they are pretty small and were heavily shaded by the next door neighbouring out-sized turnips ;) The beetroots are perfect, happily - still waiting to be relished but well utilised already in the perfect chocolate cake last week. The broccoli, winter cabbage and curly kale are the most rich and darkest shades of green that ever were - in contrast to the blue green of leeks and yellow green of spinach. All of these many shades of leafy green will provide the winter supply of vegetables to the Holly Cottage kitchen - along with the bounty of Setanta and Sarpo axona spuds that are being steadily enjoyed despite the very annoying spots of slug damage (the early Orla variety were delicious and devoured by the two hungry residents way before the arrival of autumn filled the senses - highly recommended). The broccoli and winter cabbages are more long-term investments that were planted back in March and April, while the spinach came in two lots - spring and August planted. The kale plants were the kind gift of another more organised gardener and these are getting more and more luxuriously verdant every day. One thing  though to be aware of - be vigilant and keep gathering caterpillars as part of your daily routine (still). They are voracious and destructive feeders, despite their un-assuming white butterfly parentage!

Apple (pie)s of the sun - heavenly...

Okay - there's the green but where's the red you say? Well apart from the red eyes that seem to be staring back at me from the mirror these days, there are the bright red sweet-peppers, shiny red cayenne peppers (every shape and curly form imaginable), and at least four types of tomatoes. The apples too are red - we have one very special variety called 'Redlove' that we got as a wedding present two years ago. Not much happened with it last autumn but this year the apples are sweet, small and perfectly red inside. It comes highly recommended by this house and is available online from most good garden centres. The other apple we have is an 'unknown' type that was bought in Aldi - we didn't expect much but we were pleasantly surprised - the apples are good sized and tasty, still with that lovely tartness that becomes most Irish grown apples. The pumpkin is pretty special too and I am reluctant to even think about cutting into its perfect marmalade orange form - would that it could sit on the window sill forever! Last but not least - tall sweetcorn plants are a kind of disturbing form in the garden yet - slightly reminiscent of Children of the Corn but way more enjoyable -but so different than the shop bought variety as with all things that are home grown on your own plot.

So how to celebrate all this golden-red-orange harvest? By eating it of course..think apple sauce (apples stewed with nutmeg, cinnamon, cloves and brown sugar and a splash of water) and then put that together in mini-apple pies (shortcrust pastry - 8oz flour with 4 oz margarine rubbed in, add cold water and chill ;) ) ....match these parcels of autumn delight with natural yogurt (yum). The tomato bounty has mostly been sent to the freezer - core the 'stalk bit' out first, wash and put straight into freezer for the darker days of winter (think tomato soup with a sprinkle of smoked paprika). All the peas and beans are tucked away there already with the strawberries and rhubarb, while the sweet and chilli peppers won't make it that far and are sweetening and heating dinner times with great gusto.

Oak canopy of colour

It's all good of course, and all very rewarding for all the days invested since the light started to come back in last February. Time now though to take a bit of a step back and enjoy the fruits of the labour and the change in the seasons - just walking through the oak woods is enough to take your breath away - and let's just see what the next one ushers in.

A week in the life (through bleary eyes)

Tomatoes as big as Holly :)

Nothing will ever be the same - we know that now. The days pass in a blur of early morning moving swiftly into midday, afternoon and back to night and morning that comes again all too quickly and abruptly. There is no night anymore - no designated sleep time, no designated holy rest for a weary body. Night time becomes morning very soon after midnight and so too does the cue for the 2am feed that is barely finished before the 5am feed, that demands the 7.30am feed that leads to the 8.30am feed to the.....you get the picture. There is only one guaranteed sacred quiet time that remains - and that is the time between the grown-ups' dinner time (just about 9pm - more Mediterranean than Irish I know - I blame the Bajan in him ;) ) and the last feed of the 24 hour clock before she is packed up in bundles of pink blankets and lain down through fits and starts for the one three hour of session sleep that she has gifted to us everyday so far in all of the first three weeks of her life. 

These days, instead of having lists of 'things to do' and realistic ambitions of a suite of tasks that must be done for the world to go on (as I previously knew it) - I have basically reduced my expectations to 'getting one thing done in any given day' and that makes me feel like I am still even slightly my own person and therefore not totally and utterly surrendered to the needs of our beautiful daughter, Alannah. One thing every day. And you know what, I am glad to get that one thing done even if I don't get it completely done, if I at least get it started or if I manage to get a thought of it (which is a start in itself if you recount that all of the greatest achievements in life begin with a thought?). Let me give you some examples of the 'one thing' - successfully making dinner from start to end despite having to rock Alannah with one left foot while chopping onions (Monday); baking bread from a start of getting the dry ingredients together early in the day to baking it later that night along with the head chef's dinner creation (Tuesday)....

Chocolate beetroot cake, oh my!
Light and fluffy and chocolatey divine

....complete execution of divine chocolate beetroot cake - it was a push! (Wednesday); hoovering and dusting the first time in four weeks and an article for the Yoga Therapy Ireland magazine (Thursday); helping with the shopping with her in a cosy sling (Friday) and (finally) enjoying the sunshine yesterday and getting around to picking very ripe tomatoes and those nasty weeds along the garden path that have been jeering me for the last two weeks (Saturday). Sunday will be publishing this post - I hope (I think). That is 'one thing' on top of at least twelve feeding sessions, between ten and twelve nappy changes, a wash for Alannah, one shower for me - usually lasting 2 minutes - a short walk with Holly dog and a few cold cups of tea in between (forget about actually finishing a cup of tea while it is still hot). 

And that is how it has been for the first three weeks. What a learning curve and what a dramatic change in existence. We've all been experiencing the change - not least Alannah herself. What must it be like in a world where everything is blurred and you must rely on others around you entirely for your life support. How helpless she is, and how humbling it is to be the ones that are keeping her warm and dry and fed and safe and contented and secure. For that is the most important of all things now and that is the 'one thing' that has engulfed and overshadowed all other seemingly important 'things' that pre-dated Alannah's arrival in the Holly Cottage.  

Muse in pink 

And so, through bleary eyes I draft this on a Saturday night before the last feed and the collapse into warm and cosy bed for three precious hours of dreamtime. Holly is curled up sleeping in her bed, head chef has hung up his apron for the night, and Alannah - like Holly - is lost in her own dreams of who knows what. For how can they be dreams as we know them without colour or shape or form or name or direction? If only she could tell us. But she is giving us a smile every now and then, and that in itself is more than enough reward...

A New Arrival to the Holly Cottage

Beautiful Irish girl - all wrapped
up in Granny's hand knit cardigan

The last few weeks have passed in the blink of an eye. The last time I wrote here, it was to herald the onset of autumn and the promise of the fruits of spring and summer's labour. We spent the first few days of September getting ready for that promise - busying ourselves with long over-due jobs like cutting back the now tiny hedge, taking the dying stalks off the spuds, cutting back unruly spinach, rocket and oregano plants, freezing the glut of rhubarb for darker winter days and making the place ready for the weeks that were coming when there would be no time for such leisurely activities like hoeing drills or pottering about admiring the sweet peppers, chillies and tomatoes developing on the vines. 

This day two weeks ago, time and nature put a stop to my bending and stooping and lolling about as Holly Cottage's lady of gardening leisure. For this day two weeks ago we made the long journey to the maternity hospital (half an hour in pain seemed like forever yet we weren't even close to getting started!), for an event that we were completely ready for in principle yet absolutely and completely not ready for in so many real ways. Neither of us knew what to expect, and I am glad for it. I've often wondered why nature wipes the accessible memory of our birth from our minds - why we don't remember that precious time cocooned in the warm bath of our mother's womb - when we are loved and anticipated and completely encased in the most advanced of all biological intensive care units. I realise now that the memory is with the mother and the father - and the loved ones about them. It is theirs to share and theirs to tell if and when they so please it. Because whatever the pain experienced, the moment that baby emerges, is one of the most amazing moments of any person's life. And while I can't speak for the man, it ranks up there in terms of life changing and eye opening experiences - it is the birth of life itself. 

Born ready ;)  

We went with a natural birth - and while the pain was greater than any preparation by yogic breathing could overcome - the pain is but a memory now to be recalled with laughter and good humour as we realise it was the necessary signalling of our beautiful baby's birth cry. It marked her voyage from where her life began, into the outside world to take her very own first delicious breath of air, and begin her very own life's journey beyond the walls of my (by the end of 41 weeks) outgrown growth chamber for her. 

That nine months of her growing inside of me now seems like such a short time when you realise the wonder of the tiny fingers and toes, eyelashes, perfect skin and bright eyes that she came equipped with to make us love her totally and unreservedly. For since that moment, I am at her beck and call. Where once it was two and a dog, it is now two and a dog and a tiny person that needs us to care and protect her for some years to come. Notice I don't quantify that time, knowing so well that parenting is a job for life. And how bad really? We knew that when we started, and now instead of just knowing it, we understand it. 

Poor Holly of course is traumatised, but she is starting to come round ;) She has been missing her twice daily walks in the woods, but that will come again - but only when we feel ready to take her and her new best friend out into the great big world beyond the half door of the Holly Cottage. So for now, it is sleep when we can, eat at the best and next opportunity that arises, and enjoy gazing at the wonder of what we have created through sleep deprived and still disbelieving eyes. 

And so, welcome Baby Alannah Marie to Holly Cottage - and welcome all the trials and tribulations and adventures to come. And thanks to all for the good wishes and warm welcomes - let the fun and games begin ;)

Summer's End

Rose tinted window of the past

There comes time in the year where there is no denying the obvious - the change in the day length, the change in the morning temperature, the coolness of the evening and the sudden realisation that you may have to stop wearing sandals and flip flops very soon and revert to  the toe suffocating shoes of colder times. Yep, autumn is upon us - but what a summer! We were busy the whole way through it - seems like everyday brings its own jobs that in your head will take only a few minutes but once the gardening gloves come on, time seems to go into a different dimension entirely and next thing you know the sun is setting and you need to start thinking about dinner! 

I wonder sometimes what we would be working on if we weren't grappling with caterpillars, weeds, slugs and overgrowing trees and roses that can become giants in the blink of a fine summer's growth? But it's all worth it - the hard work followed by the watching and learning, and understanding on a deeper level the turning of the seasons and how that is reflected in our own turnings. And for the next six months I get to spend more time than just Saturdays and Sundays reflecting on that and hopefully without too much navel gazing - although I'm sure a newborn won't allow for that - I'll be able to appreciate it even more. 

Any ideas??

So what's happening out there? Take a virtual walk around the Holly Cottage garden - starting at the top - and an entire mesocosm is unfolded. The sunflowers are the first to be taken in - there is a particular one out there now that is covered in fourteen (yes, fourteen) flower heads - wow. Such golden yellow and such golden joy. Then the cover of trailing nasturtiums over the Mediterranean lavenders and the outdoor larder of fragrant herbs - mint, oregano, chives, thyme, marjoram, rosemary, parsley, basil - all frequent visitors to de Holly Cottage pot. And all of that in a space about 2m x 2m. Plants will enjoy any space available, in my experience they're really not all that picky - except the fussy ones, so don't get hung up on those (funny how that lesson translates right across the boards of life!). 

The readiness is all*

Walk a bit further past the bountiful strawberry bed, past the tall sweetcorn that brought a north American feel to the garden this summer, past the peas covered by the Holly dog-proof fence (it doesn't work - she'd put the pink panther to shame with her stealthy prowess), past the bright purple turnips, the inconspicuous parsnips, the tender carrots and the un-assuming beetroot all buried in the ground for now - and down to the corner covered in the dusky pink rose that brought such a sweet fragrance to summer evenings. Here - in the farthest corner of the tiny plot - the last few days have witnessed a transformation. Where once there was no light, there is an illuminated composting area newly built - all clean and shiny as shown here on the day of its making - and ready to take on the stalks of cabbages, spuds, leggy rocket and giant Brussels sprout stems and whatever else gets cast aside in the next few months from the bounty of 2013. 

On the other side of the garden is fruit alley - the scene of raspberry, blackcurrant, apple, pear and cherry tree. This spot was definitely a feasting table for the blackbirds and the Holly dog - we only got a handful of raspberries and blackcurrants, but then we had the strawberries all to ourselves! All the fruit trees and bushes are cut back now and it's Gladioli flower time - long stalks of green that find it difficult to hold their heads with all the lavish pink and red and purple decorating their stems, and that continue to fall under the weight of all that beauty - a bit like the sunflowers!

Flowering frenzy

Moving a bit further around I find myself in the greenhouse - miraculously in one piece after two battering winters - and I am lost in a jungle of chili plants, sweet peppers, tomatoes, and cucumbers. I only have to smell the leaf of the tomato to realise the taste of the vine-ripened red fruits - add a leaf of basil and a touch of balsamic and Michelin star quality arrives in the Holly Cottage kitchen ;) After all, good food is about good ingredients. We'll cut the pumpkin today and see how that is - it's a bit early for scaring the neighbours yet but we will chance roasting the sweet orange flesh for dinner after some long day spent watering and picking and tending. The onions are already resting in the shed for the winter - red and white,  fragrant and sweet - and the Cork apples are tantalising the wasps that lost their home in the big clearance of the side hedge. Not to worry, it's been a great year for bees and wasps - the champions of honey production and of keeping other un-wanted aphid pests in check. 

And so, all this can't go on forever. And the heralds of September tell us that it's time to start packing up and readying for colder, darker days - hopefully with their own ample share of sunshine. This summer we were comforted with heat - maybe this year we will be blessed with sunny autumn days and crisp winter mornings, and just a dash of rain every now and then to keep us thankful. In the meantime we must ensure that the kitchen cupboards are full of sweet relishes, chutneys and jams to make the taste of summer last throughout the year. And we are ready on another front too - ready for maybe the greatest adventure of all - but we will have to keep ye posted on that front, no rush! 

This weekend's chutney foray was of the apple variety - a recipe borrowed from a Dublin chef one winter's night. The cooking of it fills the kitchen with the most fabulous of aromas - sweet Middleton apples diced, Asian cinnamon, mixed spice, crushed juniper berries, Californian raisins, Holly Cottage onions and sticky soft brown sugar sweetness all mixed with several glugs of cider vinegar and simmered down for a couple of hours. Now there's a tangy complement to sweet and creamy Wexford cheddar to brighten any winter lunchtime - and it will ;)

Happy Birthday Holly!

On another note - it's Holly's birthday today - all of three eventful years today. And bold as ever - thief of garden peas, lover of rocket and new potatoes, champion of stick fetching and wood foraging, patron of hugs and ear scratches and all-round trickster that can test your will yet charm you endlessly at the same time. Happy Birthday Holly!

*drawing inspiration from Hamlet Act V, Scene II