We live in an old schoolhouse, and bisecting the garden is a six-foot stone wall — effectively separating what were once the boys and girls yards. It’s a charming throwback to a bygone era, a lovely original feature of the property, and this spring it’s also home to a family of blue tits. They’ve chosen to nest in a small hole between the stones about a third of the way up, the entrance secreted behind the leaves of a young pear tree that’s fanning across the wall.
I first noticed the parents coming and goings a few weeks ago, but thought I’d keep it to myself until I was sure the eggs had hatched. The girls love nature and wildlife, but their enthusiasm they can get the better of them sometimes, and the last thing I wanted was an abandoned nest. Once both parents were busy feeding their hungry chicks the likelihood of that happening was pretty slim, and so when I could hear the insistent cheeping that told me they’d arrived I showed the girls the adult birds’ comings and goings, the caterpillars and grubs they were bringing, and, in between the parents’ visits, I showed them the nest itself.
In the darkness of the hole you could just make out the bright yellow gapes of five hungry little mouths. The excitement was palpable.
Continue reading »
They’re back!
It’s election time again and the country’s lamp posts and telegraph poles have been festooned with an assortment of dodgy-looking mug-shots that do little to improve the view.
Let’s face it, by and large pictures of politicians aren’t pretty. Even the polished practitioners of national politics struggle to look good when their faces are blown up to poster-size and put on display. Local wannabe councillors have no chance.
One such unfortunate suddenly appeared on the telephone pole outside our house recently. When I went to bed at midnight the pole was bare… the following morning at 7am there he was, grinning down at the house like some voyeuristic lecher. Was this supposed to inspire me to vote for this man? Think again! It makes you wonder who’s giving these people their marketing advice.
Maybe I’m missing something, but I can’t for the life of me work out how poster politics is supposed to work. Yes, it raises public awareness, but more often than not it’s the groan-and-cringe kind of awareness that does nobody any favours. And let’s be blunt here, on balance your typical local election candidate isn’t particularly pleasant to look at; it’s no beauty contest, that’s for sure. So what do you have? Just a bunch of ugly mug-shots sullying the Irish landscape, and for what? Do they tell me what these people stand for? Do they tell me what they plan to do for me, my family and my community if I help elect them? No, they just distract and irritate me, and if anything have the opposite effect.
Continue reading »
Ah the humble sandwich.
It comes in many shapes and forms, using different varieties of bread combined with a dizzying array of fillings that span the gamut of texture and flavour. With countless options, there’s literally a sandwich for everyone. It’s the staple of family picnics, and the stalwart of childhood nutrition that is the school lunch.
Yes, despite originally being considered as "man’s food" to be shared during late night gaming and drinking sessions, the 19th century namesake of the 4th Earl of Sandwich has, over the years, migrated across the social spectrum to become the mainstay of children’s lunch boxes around the country and around the world. Which is all well and good, but filling my daughters’ lunch boxes has evolved into one of the most trying parts of the daily grind.
School lunches have become the bane of my weekday mornings, and constructing them in the early morning tends to bring forth a tirade of under-the-breath expletives than wouldn’t be out of place in a Gordon Ramsay kitchen.
Continue reading »
Catching up with a few missed posts… this one from the end of April while we were leaving Spain on our way to Morocco….
We’re sitting on the ferry as it pulls out of Algeciras on the southern tip of Spain. Our destination, Cueta, a Spanish port on the North African coast, and from there across the border into Morocco, and on to the Rif Mountains and the Mediterranean coast. The crossing takes around 45 minutes – highlighting just how close Europe and Africa really are. So close, and yet a world apart.
Ferries are frequent, with ships from the various companies leaving approximately every hour, so there’s plenty of choice and no real need to pre-book.
The girls have been getting more and more excited about the trip to Morocco as our week in Spain has progressed—it’s like going on holidays, they said, when you’re already on your holidays. They’re turning into accomplished little travellers, and I have to say that so far this trip—from check-in at Cork Airport, to collecting the hire-car at Malaga to boarding the ferry to Morocco—they’ve taken it all in their stride. There have been surprisingly few arguments and complaints.
It’s the same now. After a brief skirmish about window seats on the ferry they’ve all settled down nicely and are reading their books or playing with their “Nintendos”.
Ahead of us lies Morocco, and a completely new adventure, but for the last week we’ve been exploring the Costa del Sol, and I have to say that, after a first impression that lived up to all of my low expectations of the region, I’ve been very pleasantly surprised.
Continue reading »
my latest tweets! 
We live in an old schoolhouse, and bisecting the garden is a six-foot stone wall — effectively separating what were once the boys and girls yards. It’s a charming throwback to a bygone era, a lovely original feature of the property, and this spring it’s also home to a family of blue tits. They’ve chosen to nest in a small hole between the stones about a third of the way up, the entrance secreted behind the leaves of a young pear tree that’s fanning across the wall.
