The cool balm of rain

Needing balm, something to soothe and cool, I turned again to the simple task of looking. Fired up and blasted off like a rocket that morning, by the end of the day I was dragging myself around.

Too many stories had caught my eye. There were so many burrows to explore. Strategies and crucial questions filled my brain. The simple task of looking would freeze the urgency.

The bracken still had tinges of green. The sky filled the frame with navy blue. Droplets held calm worlds within their lens.

Even now the smell of the earth and the undergrowth is a sweet memory that will get me through the busy days ahead.

Ireland 2013

It's messy. Through a blurry haze, the camera is loving raindrops and turning them into bokeh. Very little input from the photographer on this walk except maybe clicking the shutter.

Questions are meandering in and out of the two boney hemispheres between my ears. Round and round. How many of us are craving healing? Feeling tired of responsibility? Battling the negativity of crashing economics tightening and tightening on us?

Clinging to the colours of goodness floating between strands of threaded webs. Half closed eyes squinting against the evening sun. Soft drops falling on the squished up leaves.

Just keeping going, never quite on top of things, but never completely giving up on ourselves either.

Their creations

This morning there is a smorgasbord of administration awaiting me at my desk.

Sipping my last drops of coffee, one foot in the world of strategy and one in a forest of spider's webs, the sparkly raindrops win the toss and the wellies are on.

Galaxies of web threads and universes of morning dewdrops blanket everything. It's only on these moist misty mornings that they are visible. Billions of tiny insects, spiders, crawlies, spreading out from the gorse on the hill to the chair outside the kitchen door. Lattices and spirals of precious mesh.

This time of the year the tree spiders and cellar spiders are each looking for a mate. Inside the house they run out from their usual dark cover, disoriented but determined. Do they have to crawl over everything? Even over me?

Outside I feel more tolerant. Sometimes one scuttles into view, magnified by the lens and I jump a little. Less and less as it happens. They are starting to win me over.

Their clever work, their harmony with the environment, their secret presence. Do they have consciousness of the beauty they create? That's my question as I reluctantly head back to that cluttered desk.....

Raindrops

When the rain rolls in from the western Atlantic we can be enveloped for days. The greyness hangs over the whole island like a wet blanket. We struggle to communicate about anything but the weather.
Showers gather, deluges threaten, scattered downpours are aggravated by strong winds.

We laugh about towing the whole country a few degrees southward. We have the temperament of the Mediterranean countries but the weather of the Vikings. We like to think we are Cuba without the sun.

I try to remember the positives, the green it brings, the trees who thrive on it, the cosy pitter patter on the roof at night. But the worst effect has to be the absence of light. It can be scarce enough at the best of times but on these days I pine for it, scouring the sky for breaks of blue.

During a gap I head out for a short ramble. Everything is weighed down with watery raindrops. Full fat globules of liquid silver. One of the most precious commodities in the world. One of the scarcest human necessities in plentiful supply here, sparkling like garlands of jewels.

And I notice the smell of the land......soft, sweet and damp.

Guzzling Bees and Woundwort flowers

So the rain continued to bucket down all through July and alongside the accompanying sea mist, a kind of fog settled on my brain. The days melt into one and soon afternoons blend into night. It can all get a bit grey and vague without sky, and sunsets and the changing light I crave......

One evening I found myself sitting for a while with a swathe of damp Woundwort flowers and discovered that the bees were very much alive and kicking. Their buzzing was infectious and soon I was lost in their world of flitting and guzzling.

Woundwort is another of those beautiful wildflowers considered a "weed" and banned from gardens. So today I am showing off it's delicate beauty and welcoming a big invasion of it in Foxglove Lane.



More photos of guzzling bees and Woundwort here in the gallery

Do children have macro lens eyes?

I remember delving deeply into everything.

Collecting pooka snails and ordering them about as they emerged from their shells. Harvesting rose petals and creating watery concoctions to extract their sweet essence. Adding mint leaves into mucky stews and serving them up to the dog.......

Leaving special gifts for the little people. A rhyme wrapped up in a chestnut skin, just the way they would like it. A doll's tea-set cup full of the juice of blackberries, squashed under a stone and decorated with beads from a treasured bracelet.

Elaborate offerrings to entice the faeries out to play.

When the raindrops settled, I saw them in there, dancing and flying about on spectrum coloured wings. Do children have macro lens eyes? Is that the magic we are reminded of when we magnify our world so that all it's ethereal detail is revealed and we are once again enthralled?

Ireland is a greyish greenish mauve in winter

It's another greyish greenish mauvey morning. Ireland in the winter is challenging for a light loving snapper. Everything today is the texture and colour of tweed. From dawn to dusk it has been drizzling with a soft, wet rain. (Persisting all day, it made my photos a bit more tweedy than intended! )

As it is still quite cold the Tits, Robins and assorted Finches are really enjoying the feeders and while it is impossible to do much outside I observe their antics from the window.

As usual the Robin stole the show and I have started to notice just how territorial he can be, even pipping at me when I strayed too close to re-stock. A small bird in the scheme of things I get a great kick out of his upstart poses and cleverness.

The Tits are like exotic little budgies and always seem to move in groups creating flashes of colour in the willows. They will nest soon in the nearby gorse. The Chaffinches usually come in pairs and while he strikes a proud pose on the birdbath she pecks around on the ground a softer toned but equal partner in the setting up of their new home.

Like me the birds are waking up and getting busy for the new season, I can hear the enthusiasm in their happy tweets........

Everything is dripping wet for the first day of Advent

Last night as I was sleeping 
I dreamt -marvellous error-
that there was a fiery sun here in my heart
It was fiery because it gave warmth as if from a hearth, 
and it was sun because it gave light, 
and brought tears 
to my eyes.
      
-Antonio Machado

While the garden sleeps a soft winter is bringing buckets of rain. After one exciting frosty morning, now mild Atlantic weather systems have taken over and instead of winter wonderland we should 
have a wet and windy Christmas.

We need to keep a warm flame in our hearts at this time of the year, a memory of heat and light, 
to see us through until the spring. Time to get the 4 candles of Advent lighting and to retreat indoors.

There is so much rain, it's everywhere, on everything

It's yet another rainy Sunday and it seems as if the rain delays until I'm free from work and looking forward to a swim or a few hours in the garden with the sun on my skin, and then the deluge happens. Right now it is pounding on the roof and bending the last flowers of summer to the ground. But last night I got a lovely message from a someone in a drier climate, in the mid-west of the US, admiring the green and lush landscape that we in Ireland live in.

I suppose (grudgingly) that the rain is our friend and results in a soft and always green environment summer and winter. We turn on the tap and out it comes, clean and chemical free, always flowing. The little drops of moisture on every surface reflecting the thin light co-operate with nature to create our food and our future.

Today I am appreciating the beauty of rainy days and thinking of my friends around the world where water is a lot more scarce....The sun may be a bit lacking here in our so called summer but we are never thirsty .....