Thank the Lord! The rain has stopped, the sun has come out and the soggy land is slowly soaking up all that excess water. The cows are back in the fields and some farmers have even managed to get the tractor into the mud and get the ploughing done. It […]
“One swallow does not a summer make, nor one fine day”. I spotted two swallows one morning this week, one swooping low near the bridge in Skibbereen and the other on the road to Union Hall. Both filled me with mixed emotions, first a deeply instinctual, primal, sense of joy […]
I have a good friend who lives in Kenya – we used to teach in the same school in Mombasa. Some years ago, I stayed for a couple of weeks with her and her family in an old stone and thatch cottage right beside the Indian Ocean. Around the nearby headland […]
The arrival of spring migrants from their over-wintering grounds in Africa is well underway. The morning birdsong chorus of our resident birds, such as Blackbird, Song Thrush, Great Tit has been joined by summer visitors like Blackcap, Chiffchaff, Sedge Warbler and Whitethroat. As we move into May, the volume […]
In recent weeks, two stories broke, almost simultaneously, that caused shockwaves amongst environmentalists and climate campaigners. The first was a warning from Simon Stiell, the most senior climate figures at the United Nations. His message was stark: Governments, business leaders and development banks have just two years to avert the […]
This month the ‘Waste Not, Want Not’ team has been checking in with local partners to see how the project is going: meeting with retailers, hotels, restaurants, schools and community groups ahead of our ‘farm to fork’ gathering. On April 25, food waste champions from across all sectors will have […]