I’m a bit of a bean freak and each year we grow a variety of beans in our garden. French beans, borlotti beans, angel beans, coca beans, dwarf beans; most years each of these produces enough beans for us to enjoy but no way overwhelm us, but the runner beans […]
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I’m writing this on a terrace in the full sunshine in what is probably the last hurrah of summer 2021. All around me people – mostly tourists – are eating and drinking, soaking up the heat. Others stroll down the street eating ice creams, trailed by a line of children […]
The sun has returned and grain farmers have had a decent run to get crops harvested. Most sectors need a bit of good fortune when it comes to cashing in on a crop so it’s good to see those farmers get a settled spell after a few difficult harvests in […]
In the last few weeks we have seen the devastating advance of the Taliban resulting in the collapse of a USA-backed Afghan government. They had been in power for twenty years. The speed of the military penetration was akin to the Nazi blitz of France in World War Two, in […]
The harvesting of grain used to mark the busiest period in the Irish farming year. Wheat and barley were ready for reaping in August, while the most widespread crop, oats, was harvested in September. Before the coming of the combine harvesters, co-operation between neighbours was vital in harvesting the grain […]
I found it hard to sleep last night with the thoughts going around my head. I was thinking, as I lay there in my bed, of the many women, mothers, girls, laying in their own beds or on floors or the ground, or countless other places, in Afghanistan. My daughters were […]