Wild foxgloves on the lane

Wild Foxgloves appear in a new place each year, especially some old patch that has been recently cleared. A corner of rocky earth suddenly gives birth to an abundance of the most exotic of our wildflowers. They nestle under trees and festoon the hedgerows. They peep over the tallest grasses and parade their purply pink lady's fingers up and down the lane.

This year they surround the newly drained meadows on the shores of the lake as a ribbon of vibrant bunting. An odd one grows on a stone wall. Another few wave from the grassy hill. 

It's as if they are cheering us on!!




Check out the Foxglove Lane Gallery for more images

~ Wild, free and wearing pink high heels~

I certainly know what it means to be cold to the bone, yet today I know sun on my skin again. Summer flowers have just sprung into life, my own patch is wildly self seeding, even lavender is appearing everywhere on the gravel.

So what's the news?

While work begins to blossom again in new ways I now have one foot firmly back in the meadow. 

Ireland goes green and the wild hedgerows so threatened by recent progress (like myself) survive another year. 

Big re-vamp going on in the day job and in my own head. 

More travel on the cards before the summer is out. 

Work, home and light........ bleeding into one.

These lane walks teach about imperfection, about the simplicity of real beauty, about how all the best things grow wild and free. Glancing at the high heels lined up to wear to a wedding tomorrow I wonder how vanity suddenly won out over comfort? Flat sandals would be grand (that voice said) but when I saw the high-heeled pink ones, the teenager in me succumbed! (I have happy feet btw as I never ever squish them into "foot-binding" shoes! But once would be OK?)

So now I'm telling myself it's just like gardening. A bit of preening, weeding, watering, and a few days staring up into the sun will do wonders? And while we're at it a wee bit of toe-nail painting wouldn't go astray either!

A mysterious relationship

The camera lens enhances the ordinary and the everyday by capturing, focussing, and saturating each image. The shutter clunks, the motors whirr and the computer chip inside records every tiny detail of light and shadow. This daily photographic partnership between us, soothes, uplifts and excites my soul........

A close ally, this camera never interrupts a train of thought or a conversation inside my head, remaining the silent partner in every creative project. I am there to supply the intuition but the invention of the camera made the magic of photography.

And who knew that just when I thought I had seen enough for one day the camera would seek out a pearly snail shell attached with invisible glue to a dying skeletal petal? Something small, surprising and beautiful in this damp set of fields which couldn't possibly yield up yet another crop of images. Yet there it was, tiny, golden and completely perfect in my world.

A mysterious relationship exists between Mother Nature, the camera and me. Sometimes it works best to allow the pair of them to do the talking and just go along for the ride.......

In the green backwoods

We listen for the sound of the soft turf giving way with each footstep. We watch every little rustle in the leafy undergrowth. The darkened tunnel becomes our adventure today and we are high on the danger of it.

The boys have to hide first and then we girls count to 100. That gives the boys time to conceal themselves throughout the forest. We girls then set out to find them knowing that at some point either we will sneak up on them or they will ambush us cleverly before we can......

The giddy excitement of the increasingly spooky and darkening thicket. The ripe blackberries that lurk in the briars to distract us from our task. The shadowy woven branches of Willows, Ash and Beech. The unbridled screams of the found girls and the inevitable row over who saw who first.....

These greenest of green backwoods have been home to my dreams as along as I can remember. Dreams of bigger experiences and journeys. Dreams of a better me in a better world. Dreams of freedom and safety. Scary dreams too of what might be hidden in the dark there.

Everytime I re-emerge into the light after walking in the backwoods, I feel I have lived that young girl's fears and longings all over again......

Busy bees, the hoverflies and us.

We are busy; the bees, the hoverflies and us.

We are buzzing, and flitting and re-focussing our intentions.

We are working all hours to keep body and soul together. Gathering and seizing every chance. Seeking only the brightest and best. With every other creature we are plotting and planning and above all........ we are looking for signs........

Is there the slightest chill in the wind? Are the leaves turning their backs to the world?  Grasses everywhere are turning golden and seeding, so will the farmers get to save the hay?

We are alert. We watch the sky for breaks or for weather fronts approaching from the west.....

There are signs everywhere, Autumn is just around the corner, and the bees, the hoverflies and us just keep doing what we do best........we are working......and when we get a minute, we are enjoying the Cornflowers.........

The stillness of a meditating Hare

It's 10 years ago, our first night in the new house and I can't sleep for excitement.

It is such a quiet spot and all I can hear is the sound of the endless silence ringing in my ears. I can't stop myself listening and trying to hear something I can recognise. But in no time I am hearing things that are not there at all.

Almost dawn, still tossing and turning I jump up to see my new surroundings in the morning light. The tall summer grasses are waving in unison, the Comeragh Mountains to the west are slightly misted over and just beneath my window a doe Hare and three leverets are sitting on the gravel path, utterly peaceful and unaware of my gaze.

The stillness of a meditating Hare was something I had never seen. Usually they are loping through the fields, and they can run very fast with their long hind legs. Now I often observe them staring into space for long periods especially in the evening or early morning.

Whenever I get close, as with this youngster nibbling in the garden, I am reminded of my first night here. How in the early misty morning, the Hare family introduced me to the meditative stillness that would soon become home. The way that Mother Nature again made her presence felt in my life, and that moment when I began to re-learn how to stare into space........

......and just at that moment......

Special times come and go so fast. The one beautiful evening this summer. That last photo opportunity of the day. The final moments of the slithering sinking sun.

After a pet day on Rossbeigh Strand, that elusive sun is tracked until it's very last golden seconds of light. Lads stop playing football on the sand and have a few beers. A woman lingers at the water's edge of her evening swim, absorbed. Now the cameras of all shapes and sizes are lined up and at the ready.

It seems as if we all pause.....and just at that moment, there is so much love and gratitude for all of this, so much, I think I can feel it in the air..........

Sisters and summer light

Have just spent 5 wonderful days with not one, not two, but all three of my beautiful sisters. During a grey rainy July they brought such a blast of summer light into my life. Not that there was much sun (!)  it was more their own warm glow, their laughing eyes, those common intertwining threads all the way back to our shared childhood stories. 


My sisters have a "mothering" energy about them. Our mother passed away when we were small children and I think we have retained some of her qualities for each other. We are on the same team, we are cheering each other on, we are each unique and different but at the same time alike as peas in a pod.


We have shared very hard times especially recently, and live apart, but this summer it was light and laughter all the way. Here's to you my precious sisters, each on our individual journey, until we all meet again..........





The Journey


One day you finally knew
what you had to do, and began,
though the voices around you
kept shouting
their bad advice --
though the whole house
began to tremble
and you felt the old tug
at your ankles.
"Mend my life!"
each voice cried.
But you didn't stop.
You knew what you had to do,
though the wind pried
with its stiff fingers
at the very foundations,
though their melancholy
was terrible.
It was already late
enough, and a wild night,
and the road full of fallen
branches and stones.
But little by little,
as you left their voices behind,
the stars began to burn
through the sheets of clouds,
and there was a new voice
which you slowly
recognized as your own,
that kept you company
as you strode deeper and deeper
into the world,
determined to do
the only thing you could do --
determined to save
the only life you could save.” 
― Mary Oliver



Sets of Monbretia summer light prints available here

The tinkling of a bell

Whenever I feel a bit out of my element, I listen out for the sound of a tinkling bell. This all started with a dream I had 20 years ago. In the dream I was an elf with a bell on my hat. I was creeping out of a cardboard box that I lived in and observing a beautiful landscape stretched out in all directions around me. Eventually, as I left the box one cautious step at a time, I could hear the bell tinkling on my head.

At that time, this dream helped me to take a chance and dive into a new project I was working on. I could imagine myself wandering off, my hat bobbing along and that sound would always ease the anxiety.

That image still comes in handy every now and then. Especially in these uncertain times. Times when we all need to take different perspectives.

Today I opened a little shop attached to this blog. It has taken a fair amount of work and is still in it's infancy, but it is there! I am slightly spooked by the move so as ever I am bobbing along listening out for the sound of a bell and exploring a new unknown territory.......by the way these photos are of Wild Carrot.


You can now download or buy Foxglove Lane images here please feel free to share any feedback you might have, I would very much appreciate it.

A change is as good as a rest

It's still raining in Ireland and so my mind has wandered back to May and the heart of an olive grove in the mountains of Mallorca.

Arriving during the night through a perilous cliff side track. Smelling before seeing. Ground cover of thyme, rosemary and lavender filling the still air as we walked our final few steps down to the small gate of the house where we would stay for two whole weeks!

The twisted olive trees and the rocky mediterranean coastline were revealed at dawn. The heat of the rising sun soon seeped into our bones and the freckles appeared on our noses. Every evening on the terrace over looking the sea, I took photos of the fading light.  Every day we climbed down the stony path to the rocks and swam out through deep warm water, dreaming.

The sun burning on skin, the dry raked earth and fallen lemons on the streets of the village, five swims and a fish supper to follow. A change is as good as a rest, no wonder we crave it, here in the land of 40 shades of green, and endless days of rain.