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 ;)

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

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. 

Spring comes to Holly Cottage (at last!)

Golden Daffodils bending to the April cold

It's happening, it's happening, it's finally happening. What's that you say? Well, it's all happening! After what seems like an eternity in darkness and cold, the light is back and there's even a bit of heat! This afternoon after a morning of sunshine and showers, myself and the Holly dog were sitting out the back admiring the fresh growth of the strawberries - in a t-shirt! No jumpers, no fleeces, no scarves, no hats or no gloves gloves, just a t-shirt. Well, I was in a t-shirt. Herself is still in her thick woolly coat and is starting to resemble a very small amber coloured lamb with long ears and the cutest snout. For a very brief moment I considered retrieving the sandals or the flip flops from their winter storage, but  I thought that might jinx it entirely for the rest of the country so I stuck with the socks and the heavy runners. 

It's less that three weeks now since I last posted on the Holly Cottage blog - remember the snow? Well, we pretty much had two weeks continuous of dry, dry weather - the east wind was coming to us from Russian steppes and everything that once was green had turned a strange shade of unfamiliar yellow. The ground was starting to crack out the garden and every morning the daffodils fought off the grip of frost and managed to straighten their long and graceful necks by midday to greet the golden sun. What extremes? - the wet of January and the dry and cold of February, the damp and wind (and snow) of March and then the dry April chilling winds and hard frosts that kept leaves in their cosy buds and stopped us all from getting brave with sowing salad seeds in open ground. What seeds we had in the sturdy greenhouse were getting frosted even inside those sheltering panes of plastic so all the new members of the Holly Cottage community were brought inside to the comfort of fires at night and kitchen midday sun that boosted their growth. The beans thanked us for it and have bolted out of their holsters and the peas are gracefully starting to tendril. Sunflowers are pushing bent heads up through the compost and cucumbers, sweetcorn, tomatoes and leeks are all doing well now. Sweet basil and marjoram planted in February are only coming to and parsley planted in March is finally thickening up. 

Holly's rooftop garden

The trials of the Irish (amateur) gardener eh? Even the relentless rhibarb seems to be staggering in the April sun. Of course we could have bought a propagator like they have in Cappaduff, but that would take the fun out of it all ;)  And so we are looking forward to planting out in the next week or so, and maybe even an early spud will raise a sleepy head soon to let us know they survived the springtime freeze. 

Back to Friday night and at almost 9pm in midlands Ireland, the light is still illuminating the skeleton forms of the beech trees that line the boundary of Charleville Castle estate across the way. No leaves on the towering beech yet, but they are coming. The first fresh green buds have been spotted on the hawthorn, hazel, birch and elder in the woods for at least a week now - still not in full armour mind. Give them a chance to shake up the goodness from the roots in the warming earth to the nutrient starved leaves laid down since last year in sticky and furry buds. 

No leaves yet but
there's still plenty of sticks :)

We've been enjoying the weather regardless - long, late evening walks late in the woods with the tall oaks and dizzyingly high beeches of Charleville have been entertaining myself and the Holly dog. There are no leaves on high but the woodland floor is carpeted in the bountiful wild garlic - great for adding to the scrambled eggs! 

Holly is on the mend - thankfully. She had a stone the size of a plum seed removed from her bladder last week and is just back to her crazy self. She was only gone for a day and then kind of doped out of it for another day. With all that silence it makes you wonder -what would we do without her?

Sunday Evening Sky Divine

Evening Sky Divine http://christophermartinphotography.com

It was after 5pm, and the February sun was lowering itself slowly and gently onto the tops of the tall trees that shroud Charleville Castle in eternal shadow and mystic. Holly dog and myself were well overdue a walk in the evening spring air - having over indulged in, well - actually another well overdue treat for the man and me in the shape of a decadent Sunday lunch out. We don't treat ourselves that often - small treats here and there for sure. Like baking fresh apple and cinnamon scones on Saturday afternoons, or sneaking an afternoon nap on the Holly Cottage sofa when the sun is golden through the tall glass doors. Bliss divine. 

Hurray for the weekend I say. Time to catch up on sleep, time to bake some treats, time to put on non-work clothes and swap style-less wellies for high heels and high boots. Wearing wellies is a daily event for me, and to be honest I do enjoy the non glamour aspect of the job, keeps it real ;) During the week, hair and make up are largely dictated by which way the wind is blowing and the rose in my cheeks is  cause of the near zero chill wind factor blowing over the open landscape. And fashion comprises bundles of fleeces and wind proof coats - less wondrous than the glistening frosty veils of delicate silver birch or the winter down of seed head heavy century flowers. Can't compete with the timeless beauty of those effortless style icons ;) I am a clumsy over dressed Homo sapiens chick trundling through the wilds compared to their subtle panache. 

I digress. Back to our Sunday evening sky. 

There's something wonderfully humbling about walking amongst the Charleville trees at dusk. They are the lords of the wood - the magnificent Oaks, splendid Beech and the astounding and ancient Yew. As we walked off our Sunday indulgences, the evening sun lit our way, but it was dropping slowly and gracefully out of sight. The Blackbird was the last bird to be silenced in the darkening woods - it's song so diverse and shrill in the chilling air. One last throw of the schtick and then it was our turn to hurry home in the cold twilight. Back to the warmth of the firelight, back to the hearth of home. And we left behind glorious pinks and reds and blues and dusky greys layered in a sky that promised another day of sunshine come tomorrow's morning. Bliss divine on a cold Sunday evening. Hope ye enjoy it wherever ye are. 

Here comes the Sun..

The faint sound of gentle guitar picking in my ears and the soft, liquid caramel voice of Nina Simone singing 'Here comes the sun, little darlin'...ah, bliss. It was there all the time, tucked away in the centre of our tiny solar system. But hidden from us by a barrage of heavy winds and torrents of rain all last week. The winds whipped up last Saturday and - apart from a reprieve on Wednesday afternoon when it seemed safe to unchain oneself from the wind resistant anchors and take a very short, almost daring walk up the road - they pretty much remained the dominant force in the Irish universe up until yesterday afternoon. 

Red - another king of Charleville

And now, here we are, absolutely and 100% surrendering to the awesome presence of the sun. It's the second day of February and January has left the building. Sure it's 99% psychological, but that small difference in the name of the month, those precious extra hours in the evening and today's burst of glorious golden shine - well, it's the most welcome stress and tension dissolver. You can feel the strain of tensed shoulders shivering for the last month just melting away in the warm embrace of the sun. Word of caution though, this morning the weatherman said make the most of it, so we certainly did ;)

The day started with an early trot over to see the famous King Oak - (http://www.treeoftheyear.org/?lang=en vote for it) - over the road on the way up to Charleville Castle. Holly was busy rooting through rotting leaves while I was just enjoying the morning sunrise through the trees, when all in a flash - a flash of russet red to be exact - the fastest Red Squirrel ever, crossed my vision in a blur and scarpered into the safety of the very same King Oak's branches. Great to see, always. It's not so common a sight, and the vulnerable Reds are losing out to the more aggressive Grey Squirrels (a non-native species 'introduced' decades ago as what seemed then a great birthday present idea for some very rich aristocrat, and then escaped into the wilds to reproduce and spread and for various reasons squeeze out Red). 

Red Squirrel - top middle of photo ;)
taking refuge on the King Oak

With my phone I managed to capture the tip of his ears as he watched us for high safety - you'll do well to pick it out in the picture posted here. After that, it was a a late enough chorus to call it dawn, but Blackbirds and Robins were in full voice, and Jays seemed to be popping out of every corner of the wood. The woods in Charleville are pretty special - there's plenty of variety in terms of species, and plenty of hidden corners and secret places to entertain the walker throughout the year. Bluebell time is probably my favourite though. Or that time in mid June when you can walk through the woods as late at 10pm and still see for the shade. Every time we leave the wood, Holly always finds a suitably over-sized schtick to bring home to add to her growing stockpile - today was no exception ;)

more schticks

Basking dog

After that it was time to bask in the sunshine, and we made the best of it. No work today - apart from making the most delicious banana-chocolate chip bread for the returning hard working man of the house. But that wasn't really hard work, and I followed HIS own easy recipe - half a cup of brown sugar, half a cup of butter (I used cooking oil), 1 egg, 1 cup wholemeal flower, 1 cup self raising flour, 1 teaspoon cinnamon, 1 teaspoon all spice, a dash of rum, enough chocolate chips for your own taste (plenty!!!), four large bananas and milk to make the batter just moist enough - all in the oven at 180deg for just about an hour. A beautiful cake that is perfect for sitting outside - yes outside - with a cup  of tea and soaking in the sunshine on this fine Spring day. 

What's Another Year?

Journey's End 2012 -
try to keep within the speed limit!

It's the night before the page is turned and lifted on the 2013 calendar. The year we called 2012 is done and dusted, and while it can be a drag to dwell on what is passed - it's good to reflect on the highs and lows, and the lessons learned along the way. Maybe even the lessons ignored that we - inevitably - will face again once we are better able to take them on board. 

The year started fairly quiet for the folk of Holly cottage. The day job always kicks into extra high gear in early January and the delights of budgets and five year plans always seem to crush any pleasures save for the thrill of a lie in at the weekend, a bit of digging in the garden in winter sunshine and maybe even a trip to the cinema. I took the plunge last January and signed myself up for a creative writing course under the tutelage of Adam Wyeth - a poet based in West Cork and part of the Creative writing Ink initiative set up by Olive O'Brien. It was a great way to spend the dark winter nights - lots of weekly assignments and critique of my own writings. Plenty of lessons learned there and plenty to make the winter nights more meaningful that switching the tv on - highly recommended even you are only half interested in writing. It definitely revealed some of the cliches and pitfalls of writing creatively and thereby failing miserably. 

By March we had almost everything planted in the Holly Cottage garden - early spuds were in and onion sets were in the ground. Beans were sprouted and getting ready for the outdoors. By Easter time we had carrots, parsnips, beetroot, peas, beans, salads and seedlings in the greenhouse for tomato, cucumber, broccoli and brussels sprouts. It was all going great and we even had a week of summer in April. That was until the rain fell. From once it started to fall - it seems to me that time stood still in the garden from April to July - nothing seemed to advance or grow - except for the thriving slug population of course. It was a difficult summer, especially after three not so good ones before it. Worrying trend indeed. 

Picnic Basket's solo outing -
2012 Fungarvan

We managed to make the most of the one very sunny weekend in May - the jeep was loaded and we set off for the bright lights of Dungarvan (also christened Fungarvan after our antics there) in County Waterford. Dog was abandoned to minders so it was a puppy free and adult only weekend. Nice. This part of the country has so much to offer. We hadn't enough time to eat in every restaurant but those we did manage - Merry's and the Indian Ocean restaurant were absolutely superb and we are planning a return to the acclaimed Tannery as soon as the sun pokes it's head out the clouds and we rebuild the travel budget ;) It has a magic all of it's own - very different from the wilds of the west and calmer, yet no less seductive in its own way. We will be back ;)

In June it rained, rained and rained some more. Even in Sweden ;) Getting off the plane in Stockholm for a bit of a work thing I had dressed for sun and long lit Swedish midsummer nights - only to be met by the coldest weather recorded in a Stockholm summer. Hmm. Noticing a trend? When I got back to Ireland it was more of the same. A few days in June in the university city of Bangor (Wales) and a short day in August in Giessen in Germany proved a bit better, but not much. All over Europe and the planet Earth there were unsettling weather trends - the like not experienced before for the time of year and very unexpected. This causes problems. A wider trend then than just for poor ol' wet and soggy Ire-Land. 

Sunset on the Telford Bridge
June in Bangor Wales

And so the summer passed. I do recall that hat and gloves were required while walking the bogs in Mayo in August. And I do remember not being able to wear anything but wellies on our muddy walks through Charleville Castle woods. It was pretty miserable but we made it through - just about. Lots of Irish farmers were to the pin of their collars trying to get crops in those few good days in September and plenty was left in the field to rot. It's sad to watch crops abandoned to the wet and the mud. Something we may have to start planning for in the coming years though as the wet weather in summer seems to be showing every sign of becoming a long term trend. 

We did manage to get some sun on our toes though - remember swimming with the turtles? And all the lovely days and evenings spent hanging with the cousins watching the sunset in Barbados? If I close my eyes and concentrate I am back in Bathsheba treading my toes in the restless Atlantic foam. Home from home indeed. 

That led us to the autumn and lots of kicking of leaves in the autumn clad wood. A trip to Austria was the tonic for a yogini in need of refreshing her teaching skills; and then a December of music recording to flex the creative forces and divert the gaze from the dark and cold outside was another seasonal tonic.    

September in the Nephin Valley Mayo - Nice ;)

Sometimes I wonder how we manage to pack so much into the year - but we all do it. Look back on your own year and a whole gallery of faces and places, conversations - inner and outer - flash by. Sometimes the memory is to the fore - etched forever on the brain, like a tattoo that forms from the strength and intensity of that experience. Like watching the sunrise over the cliffs in Dungarvan that May Sunday morning or the sight of the city lights as I flew (Aerlingus of course - my superpowers not that well developed yet) over Britain in the darkness of November. Things that stay with us, that change us, that mould us. A phrase from an article, a funny picture on Facebook or an inspiring quote from Kahlil Gibran. All contributing to our own evolution. One thing's for sure we are not the same as we were when we started the journey last January 1st. 

And what for 2013? Plenty of hope, plenty of courage and plenty of gratitude for this precious life,  for what has past and what is sure to come. 

Happy New Year !

By the way - check out the youtube clip of Johnny Logan singing What's Another Year - it's a classic! Skip the first minute commentary though...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vccwzuttIQY