Hi, Just back from driving Mum home to UK from Ireland. An exhausting two days of motorway driving - north to Rosslare, across the Irish Sea, and south from Pembroke to Somerset. We were on the tail end of storm Agnes, so the return journey to Irelan...

Hi, It looks as if we are in for a sunny September, which will be welcome, as my mother (91) is due to arrive in 2 days. She will need our living room as a bedroom, so lots of shifting around is in order - where does that dust come from? I've been la...

Hi, In turn, the sun has shone, the rain has fallen, the wind has blasted... but life is presently viewed from behind glass as I beaver away at my writing obligations. One little thing that fell in my lap this month was a kitten. Discovered starving...

Hi, I really know the 'visitor' season is here when our regular music sessions start up. Below, we are playing at the market square in Dunmanway.Update on Irish Wreck RenovationsLast month my story was about the kitchen we used when we first arrived...

Hi, Summer is here. There is an abundance of white Hawthorn blossom, like ice-cream soda bubbling out of the hedgerows. Everyone we speak to agrees it's unusual, beautiful, and strange and, in the light of the global weather changes, worrying.We have...

Hi, After a fairly cold start to the spring, the temperature has risen (so has the wind!), and everything is exploding into life. The Blackthorn blossom is abundant, leaves are bursting out on the trees, and we have trays of seedlings growing in the...

Hi, I apologise for the delay in sending this month's newsletter. I was away in England for a family funeral, and had a two-day break in the Porlock Weir Hotel, in a stunning room with a view out over the sea. A cut above my usual accommodation.Then...

Hi, After months of incessant rain bringing miserable, cold, overcast days, floods and soggy fields, the sun has finally shown its face. It's amazing how much it lifts the spirits. We've started sowing seeds in the polytunnel to plant out when the th...

Hi, A Happy New Year to you, one and all!My new year started off with a bang. Straight into ghost writing a memoir for a lady from the Killarney area. Can you imagine being brought up in the house below? It was no different from the others in the par...

Hi, It's blooming cold here in Ireland. Hard frosts, frozen water, icy roads. Set to continue for a few days. West Cork used to be known as a frost-free zone, only having had snow once in twenty years when we moved here, now we have hard frost every...