Something precious to belong to; home.

Today it is the stillest, sunniest spring morning. 

To the east the hill of gorse is in full flower and the exotic aroma of sweet coconut brushes against my jacket. Birdsong fills the fields as nest making and nest guarding goes on. In the distant sky the Coastguard helicopter is rumbling it's way out over the Copper Coast. 

The golden light smothers everything in streams.  Later the wind will probably pick up from the southern Atlantic, a front might approach from the Comeragh Mountains to the west or from the plains to the north.

For now Waterford on a still spring day, in the golden light of this spring flowering, is something precious to belong to. 

And it's home.

Check out a new gallery called Up close in the Hedgrows here

April hedgerows

Bumble bee

Gorse

Violet

Blackthorn blossom

Ladybird

Herb Robert

Primrose

It's three years now since I started this blog. One of my earliest posts was a photograph of creamy Blackthorn blossoms on the ditch. Today just a short walk up the lane reveals again the quiet beauty of our wildflowers. While the coconutty gorse dominates and is blooming all over the hill, along the ditches there are small splashes of colour. Getting in closer (some of these are really tiny) there are ladybirds competing for space along the grassy highway, and bees busily buzzing.......

Take a deep breath, spring is here, summer is just around the next corner, and creamy blossoms are still as good as it gets........

There are some more Irish Wildflower images here

Basking in a golden blaze of colour

It fills the rocky hill outside the window. Where there has been such little growth so far, a smoldering blaze of flowers all contained in frightening thorny branches.

The sun warms the flowers so that their sweetest coconut scent fills the fields. For the first time in weeks there is promise and hope of spring. It restores and revives.

And I bask in it!







(Thanks to all of you who correctly proposed coconut instead of almond!!)

Living with soul

January 2012 early Wild Gorse flower



I cannot answer any of the big "why" questions, like for example "Why are we here?" I haven't a clue. From now on I am going to stop asking that. I am going to be more concerned with how we are here. How.

That leads me to another of those big questions. Is there such as thing as living with soul? What is soul? Is it everything that is the opposite of soul-less-ness? When we say something is soulless it is lacking in meaning, empty, dark, dead, crass, spiritless, without character. So then is everything with soul colourful, spirited, meaningful, alive, deep, individual, and full of character?

If so then soulfulness would not be too hard to achieve. It wouldn't require any fancy education or the latest new gadgets. It is more likely to be found in rich detail, natural beauty, growing stuff, tea and toast, woolly socks, button collections, the ordinary and the everyday of a good life.

We bare our souls, keep body and soul together, dance to soul music, are soul mates.


I want to live with soul.

Blooming wild heather and gorse remind me of dingly dell fantasies....

Just now the wild heather and gorse are blooming in the surrounding hills. They nestle between rocks and ferns, always perfectly placed. I study them and think about ways of re-creating this, but again, nature is the superior garden designer every time....

These are the "dingly dell" places that remind me of childhood fantasies. Do you remember looking into wooded places or long grassy hedgerows and imagining faeries and mythical creatures living in there? I used to leave gifts for them, a few seeds, placed in a conker shell, or a spare ribbon from my hair which I would deny having lost...yet again.

Days later, if I could wait that long, I would return to see if the little gifts had been taken away. When they were I would be convinced of the presence of elves or leprechauns...... then I knew for sure that they were there! What little faerie dens did you imagine?

PS I know that's not how you are supposed to spell faery, but I like it!