It is over a week into 2026, and we are still finishing off the excess food from the holidays. I ate the last of the mallow cakes this morning. I also ate a bit of fruitcake and nibbled on a chocolate praline that I don’t like much. Only the ones […]

What is that cold, wet stuff falling from the clouds? What is this chill I feel? And where has the sun gone? After weeks of lovely weather in May, it’s as if I’ve never known a rainy, grey day. Thirty years of living in West Cork, and all it takes […]

And so here we are. It’s May. (“Tra la! It’s May!” sang Guinivere in the musical Camelot. The lusty month of May!) In the over thirty years that I’ve lived in West Cork, the month of May has always been pretty good. Sometimes it’s been spectacular. This time of the […]

Excuse my language but WTF have they been doing to the hedgerows? It’s Armageddon out there. Except that Armageddon is defined as the last battle between good and evil before the Day of Judgement, and if the hedgerows represent Good and the machines shredding them represent Evil – then it’s […]