Strawberries and the object of his desire

He is not a popular visitor for most soft fruit growers.

As always the debt of gratitude I owe to my only photographic models outweighs the loss of any blackcurrants or strawberries that may have taken place during this shoot.

I adore working with him, and surely he knows it.

Sometimes he just lands on this rock to show off his good side. Mostly he is swooping across the wild garden or rustling around deep in the fruit bushes. Today he is demolishing strawberries and courting a young one.

Like any old friend, I study him. The lens gets me closer. My every move has to be frozen and quiet. His alertness is a little off kilter today as the object of his desire makes a brief appearance. She is a very young hen blackbird, a lovely speckled brown in colour.

His one effort at romance is rebuked and she disappears. The Blackbird continues on his well worn flight path across the garden and the dish of the day, strawberries, takes his attention once more.

Hen Blackbird is one of my featured galleries at the moment.

Set free in a loose garden

We inhaled the scent of herbs on the soft balmy air. Occasional yelps of joy bounced across the lake as youngsters leapt into the water from the dodgy bough that leans out over the deeper water. 

The Irish feel such deep relaxation in our bodies when the temperatures soar. So we are elated by this evening, warm enough to sit outside under the sky, warm enough to put our feet up, one where we can get the grill out. 

I love your "loose garden" she said.  And loose is a good word for it. 

Loose enough to sway in the breeze, loose enough to shed colourful seeds everywhere, to create dingly dells of stems and blossoms. 

If I were a thrush I too would want to be set free, in a loose garden......

More wild places here

Friendship at the edge of time

Every year there is one sure thing, we will make a journey out to the west of Ireland where the Atlantic crashes against the shoreline of Europe, last stop before New York. There will be clouds, there will be mist and there will be a sense of leaping off the edge of the world and into the benign abyss.

Out past the road from Dungarvan to Youghal from Cork to Macroom, from Killarney to Dingle. Way out there is a spot where as the skies get bigger so do the questions. Back to the land, face towards the sea, how to go on, how to let go?

I swim with the hobbit footed woman, she is focussed on the cold. Still icy water creeps up our legs announcing the warmth of bits that have remained under exposed all winter. She dives in. She can't dilly dally, her gift to the world is to keep moving. Her style is discipline and three swims a day. It doesn't matter if it's warm, cold, raining, windy, misty, grey, blue, golden. She is relentless. Some one true to her commitments, some one you could trust. Part seal, part salty siren.

Later in the pouring rain we four slip into the ancient walled settlement, stone upon stone. The rain has seeped into my coat and is dribbling down the back of my shirt. Out here on the edge we hold each other momentarily while time swirls around us thundering down from the mountain, gushing up through the earth beneath our feet.

Moods swing in the modulating skies, colours chase shadows over the landscape, rainbows appear and disappear like visions in the firmament. Time breathes hard onto my face, drying the raindrops. With the faintest scent of herbs wafting through the air, we turn for home, our feet more firmly rooted, each in our own way.




Dedicated to my precious family and friends who have shared special small moments with me all through this summer.........

Also on Vision and Verb today

"You only have to let the soft animal of your body love what it loves"

"You only have to let the soft animal of your body love what it loves"

 from the Wild Geese by Mary Oliver


Sign up for updates from my new photographic sketch book here

With thanks to Grace

Summer morning in an Irish country garden

The morning begins with 6 ducks swimming right to left in the lake at the end of the field.  Then shortly afterwards 8 ducks swim back in the other direction.  I am on pause. At 5 in the morning, after weeks of travelling and seeking I am slumped in a chair in front of the familiar view.

A pair of larks flit across the gorse at the side of the hill. A blackbird stands alert under the willows. The golden reeds facing east, usually subdued by shade are lit up by the rising sun. The house is quiet and I pad around looking for wifi. My plan is to download another New Yorker author reading a chosen short story and return to the leaba.

The sunny morning seeps in and instead I reach for the camera. It's still cool but the sun is up now, and the wind so far is being kept at bay. The wild garden, tamed by ground cover this year is allowing the flowering plants more room to breathe. And so am I this sunny morning, breathing, slowing and settling.

Last year more photographs were taken by us humans than all the photographs EVER taken in all the years before that.  We are all now part of an enormous visual community capturing our everyday lives digitally. And so here is my everyday stuff. Not much stirs here, but if it flutters or flies, I will be there soaking in the intensity of my Irish country garden. 




See more photos in the Summer Wild Garden Gallery here

~ 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!

......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..........

My typical Irish summer snaps.....

Well it wasn't a summer of sunny swims or shady meadow picnics. But in our typical Irish summer there were golden days in spite of that.

That's the thing about looking back, we somehow manage to find the sun in it. Like the day the little girl in pink wellies flew her kite on Tramore Beach, the day the neighbours' geese made a run for me, or the perishing Sunday I saw my elders swimming happily during howling gales in Garrarus.

The way the local girls exercise their ponies and manage to chat about Justin Bieber at the same time. Paddy's delight when he finds something lovely for me to photograph. The screams coming from the disembodied legs at the amusements "down around."

Those cloudy grey skies and the very occasionally visible western sunset which would have me running up to the highest point on the hill. The way that little pools of dreamy coloured rain settle in Hydrangea flowers.

Perhaps one of my favourite sights this summer was of the French couple snacking on the Copper Coast bench at Annestown beach. Wrapped up warm, a nice bottle of wine, a pint of Guinness and a selection of cheeses, all while staring into space and an onshore breeze.......A great example of what we would call "getting the best from the day." Here's to a few more weeks of the typical Irish summer!