Going green

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

If Ireland is green then Greece is blue #Pilgrimage ~ May

If Ireland is green then Greece is blue. All kinds of blue, even kinds I wasn't expecting...........

It starts when you turn south from Corinth. The legs of the layered peninsulas each stretch out into the Mediterranean exactly like the feet of our little bear of an island, around Kerry. The mountains seem bluer and bluer into the distant western skies. In the evenings the clouds come down from the highest snow covered mountains providing a light show until sunset.

This is a Narnia land of mountains and valleys all leading down to the turquoise sea. The villages on the far side of the mountains are isolated and quiet. I swear that when I sneezed on the mountain path, the whole valley said bless you! The harbour in Kardamili has a few small fishing boats that seem to go out to sea after nightfall. The beaches are mainly pebbly and down steep cliff side trails.

I am still so excited about being here. Today I felt the call of wifi and popped into this bar to have a chat with the twinternet. Funny thing is, it's just like parts of Ireland here, but with sun. People tell us that the wildflowers and grasses will have faded to straw in just a few short weeks. In the summer temperatures will soar to 40-45. No one will eat or sleep, but will crawl into their homes and wait until darkness falls. 

All summer tavernas, bars and shops will open 16 hours a day 7 days a week. Come winter the scattering of tourists will be no more and the local families will turn to the hills and pick their olives. Times are very uncertain in Greece and high taxes and poor services haunt the people still. There are no utopias anywhere are there? Life still has to be negotiated and grasped. 

But these blues have an effect. They still the mind and cleanse the eyes. Light warms your skin and makes you forget your creaking bones. Dropping in and out is a luxury and one I remember and honour every moment.........problem now is, how am I ever going to leave?!!

Spring in Ireland #Pilgrimage ~ April

Spring comes early here. Delicate and lemony leaves fill the hedgerows. By the time we return, foxgloves will be flowering again on the lane. Truth be told, it's hard to leave.

The privilege I feel turning into my sixth decade is overwhelming. Early losses meant that I may have lived a little tentatively, now my grip on life has become ferocious. Along the way I may have felt unsure, but now my feet step strongly along the path. Like a suffragette for all the women in my life who have missed the chance to grow old, I am beginning to deeply appreciate my own heart beating like a young thing!  

Bluer skies will fill my eyes with light. My soul mate and I will sit under the stars in Greece (as we did in our twenties) and marvel at the chance. We will both savour every new turn in the road.

I will keep you posted from the Peleponnese as long as I can catch a wave or two of internet somewhere along the way. Thank you all so much for your thoughtful comments, notes and support. As always they are much appreciated and so encouraging. 


Meanwhile there are more photographs of Spring in Ireland here 

Going green

Ireland is going green. 

First of all it's the National Holiday, Saint Patrick's Day. But even more importantly it is also Spring. 

At last, at last, at last. 

After the grey, stormy winter, here in the fields, every small twitch of change registers. Buds, shoots, blossoms, flowers. Nest building, mad march hare dashing, and the buzzing of flies. For now I just love flies!!! 

Wake up, shake a leg. I walked up the lane without a coat, without a hat! I sat on the beach and felt sun on my face! I'm sitting here at an open window listening to a blackbird chirping!

But more than anything else, it is this particular shade of green. It starts out so light and fizzy. And it's not just the EU grasses and the fertilised meadows. It's the fresh new leaves and the wild grass on the ditches. The buds of brambles, the tips of gorse. This newest spring green is the most Irish thing I can think of just now! 

I have lots of photos of smiling faces and funny hats but for Lá Fhéile Phádraig or Paddy's Day (it's never ever Patty's Day by the way) I offer you the green of an Irish spring and a Happy Saint Patrick's Day.

And for actual funny hats and craic see here

Green shoots!!

And just when it seemed like the relentless greyness would never return to light, under the dark compost, luscious rhubarb was being reborn.  It distracted me from the gloom.......

Green shoots, seeking light, embracing shade and living in glorious colour........

Mid-summer

In Midsummer now

brightest green and lush

lasting only moments

counting every one

through one half shut eye

 land bathed in light

still promising

so many balmy days

ahead

Also posted on Vision and Verb today

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......