The sky is the limit.

Love this project from my friends Paul and Marie. Inspiring…

thegreenerdream

We are nearing the completion of our extension build. It has been a long laborious journey, hundreds and hundreds of hours of digging drainage ditches, filling tyres with soil for the retaining wall and stripping bark of the logs for the main construction. We have also managed to finish the whole mosaic floor, the only thing it needs now is a final layer of grout to smooth it out and a polish. We are happy with the results and will write a bit more about it and show you some more pictures after the final polish.

This week we are filling gaps in the walls and painting everything for a neat finish. Our reciprocal roof has a fabric layer over the spirals of rope and we wanted to give it a beautiful finish. It already had a painted and stencilled design of a tree crown. We added a sky in…

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Into 2015.

 

Hi folks!

Well it’s been a while since I’ve written anything on this blog. Almost 6 months, 11th of July was the last post I did. Changes were happening in my life and I just wasn’t in the mood for writing.

The biggest change has been that Andy and I are no longer together. We have been living separately since last August. We are still good friends and look out for each other, we even spent Christmas together. After 20 years together I suppose we had both changed and living together wasn’t as free and easy as it once was.

Of course many of you will have been through the same thing and know that life goes on. There is always that period of adjustment though. Naturally! Uncoupling isn’t an easy thing to do.

I am still living in the cottage and Andy is living in a rented cottage which is about 20 minutes drive from here. We see each other every week and I’m glad to say there is no bitterness between us. He still cuts the wood and other jobs around the place.

I enter 2015 on calm waters and look forward to the year ahead. Who knows what it may bring! I am looking forward to  working in the garden again, not that I  ever stopped!

Snowdrops are already visible and of course everything is  stirring back to life beneath the surface of the Earth.  So looking forward to the Spring flowers. Especially the Daffodils, I just love them.

It has been an incredibly mild Winter here in Ireland. Very few frosty nights, the coldest one was a few nights ago, the mercury dropped to -3c. Some days there is a definite feel of Spring in the air but of course February and March are the worst of the Winter months here. Sometimes there is an east wind which goes on for weeks. Maybe this year will skip that! Wishful thinking…

 

 

I always feel relieved when the shortest day is over. I imagine the evenings are already a bit brighter. The days of long shadows are nearly over as the Sun once again rises higher in the sky.

Before I finish I would like to thank all the people who sent me messages in the past months wondering if I was ok. Sorry for not replying but that was the space I was in. It was so nice to know that there are so many genuine and caring people following this blog.

Thank you all so much.

Much love and good wishes for a happy 2015 to you all!

Bridget xx

2014 in review

The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2014 annual report for this blog.

Here’s an excerpt:

The concert hall at the Sydney Opera House holds 2,700 people. This blog was viewed about 12,000 times in 2014. If it were a concert at Sydney Opera House, it would take about 4 sold-out performances for that many people to see it.

Click here to see the complete report.

The Supermoon, Social Media, Genocide, the Sisterhood, and Why Some Artists Get up In The morning.

Hi folks! Sorry for nor blogging for some time but there are major changes happening in my life right now. I need time to absorb and readjust to these happenings. All is well, do not worry my friends.
The post I am reblogging is written by my good friend Charlie Easterfield. She writes of how the scandal of what is happening to Palestine and it’s people has affected her.

charlie easterfield

Well, it’s been a hectic few weeks since the Supermoon…a veritable roller coaster of deeply disturbing world news, with a blog writing itself in my head all the time but not given the space or time to manifest. And now I’m at risk of alienating readers with my outspoken views….. so it goes.

A few days before the full moon, I was making signs for a candlelit vigil for Gaza.That evening I sat out on my verandah, bathed in moonlight, and I had an overwhelming feeling of Oneness with all Humanity….One World, One Sun, One Moon shining down on all Beings….one Earth to cherish.

As with sunsets, it’s impossible to convey the feeling off a full moon with a photograph…you need to feel the temperature, hear the sounds of the night….but when I see this photo the feelings I had that night all come back to me.

 

And yet for most of the…

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Memories of Summer 2014.

Blackcurrant time again and the rush is on to get as many as possible before the Blackbirds. All our nets are in use on the vegetable beds so it a case of who gets the ripe fruits first. Luckily we have a lot of Blackcurrant bushes.

Rather than standing by the plants picking… which I find rather back breaking…I cut off the branches and sit in comfort at the table whilst I harvest.  The fruit is frozen in one kilos lots to be used later to make jams, cordials and chutneys. Nothing like making Blackcurrant jam on a cold Winter’s day to bring back memories of Summer.

As I work I listen to the radio. The news is full of Israels attacks on Palestine. It is so heartbreaking to think of what these people are going through. Why should any human being be subjected to this suffering? Why should any Mother or Father have to dig with their bare hands to retrieve their dead child from the rubble of their home? Why oh why is the rest of the world standing by in silence?

Later I look on the internet and the horror is there for all to see. Graphic footage of dead and injured human beings. Such pain and suffering. It’s bad enough looking from a distance but what’s it like to be there?

One and a half million people live in Gaza. They are watched and blockaded from every angle. That makes the Gaza strip the biggest open prison on our planet.

Now I know this blog has many followers from the USA and if my opinion differs from yours so be it. America’s support of Israel is what is giving them the power to carry out these atrocities. Do you know your government gives Israel over three billion dollars in aid every year? Barack Obama has not come out in condemnation of these attacks and our own Irish government is equally silent.  In the last 4 days over one hundred people have been murdered. A quarter of these are children.

I wonder if this will still be going on as I make my preserves in the depths of Winter. Not so sweet memories of Summer 2014.

Setting Solstice Sun.

“If I had to choose a religion. the sun as the universal giver of life would be my god.”      Napoleon Bonaparte

“There are three things that cannot be hidden: the sun, the moon, and the truth.”    Buddha

“And so with the sunshine and the great bursts of leaves growing on the trees, just as things grow in fast movies, I had that familiar conviction that life was beginning over again with the summer.”    F. Scott Fitzgerald

“The summer night is like a perfection of thought.” Wallace Stevens.

Good things come to those who wait!

 

New Year ahead…old year remembered.

 

As we celebrate the arrival of 2014 I’m in the mood to have a look back at 2013.

The high point for Andy and I was moving into our new house last February.

 

A few days after we got there there was a snowfall. The netted area was where the previous owners had their chicken run…this is now where the polytunnel and raised beds are.

 

 

March saw my Mother here for the first visit to the new house. She prefers it to our old place in Arigna as there are no hills making it easier for walking. She will be 78 in June and still grows nearly all her own veg.

 

Freddie looking cute!

 

Lumberjacks and blue skies in April.

 

May saw the start of our lovely Summer weather.  We also made our first Hugelkultur beds…very successful they have been too.

 

On what was to be one of the hottest days of the year our polytunnel arrived and was erected in three hours. It was about 27c that day. Beautiful!

 

Water Lily.

 

Beautiful Summer Butterflies and flowers.

 

Berried Guelder Rose by the pond in August.

 

A lovely visit to Sue and the  donkeys at the sanctuary in Castlebaldwin.

 

Mid September we visited the wonderful Terra Nova garden in Kilmallock, Co. Limerick. We intend to return there in Summer 2014 to see the garden in it’s full glory.

 

By October most of the renovations were done and the finishing touches could be added. So nice to finally get all our stuff out of the boxes again.

 

Beautiful Autumn colours…

 

and Sunday afternoons walking in woodlands with good friends made the shortening days so pleasant.

 

A beautiful December sunrise.

We are so looking forward to the coming year here. Lots of work to be done on the garden and who knows what else the year will hold for us. All good things I hope.

As I bid you adieu for now it only remains to wish each and every one of you a peaceful…happy and prosperous year ahead. Thank you much for your ongoing support.

Happy New Year!

 

 

 

 

Season’s Greetings.

Whether you celebrate Yuletide or Christmas or just the fact that it’s a nice day may you have a lovely 25th December wherever you are. Happy Days! xx

Sombre Sunday.

 

A sombre day as we see images of distraught people and destruction in The Phillipines due to the most powerful storm ever recorded.  Is this Mother Earth’s call to us to stop abusing and destroying our Planet? Who will listen to her call? Or is it too late for us to change?

It is also Remembrance Sunday. The day when the dead of two World Wars are remembered.  As one watches world leaders lay wreaths one wonders why nothing changes…why the war mongers continue to prosper and create misery around the world?  Setting human against human…religion against religion. What purpose of it all?