Oct 31
I can’t tell you how much I love living in the country. We have the best of both worlds. We live in a tiny village surrounded by open fields and forests as far as the eye can see, so we have the comradery of community but the peace and solitude of the hinterland. Read more
When does the ordinary become extraordinary? When you see it up-close and personal for the very first time. I spent a lot of time in my garden over the summer and, apart from the hard work, I got to see some amazing sights. I began to see mundane things like dandelions and insects in a whole new light. I began a love affair with crickets when I first saw a nymph on my tomatoes way back in May. It was not love at first sight but later, as I was bemoaning the destruction of my beautiful cabbages by caterpillars, I was very happy to have those crickets on my side. I was lucky enough to capture a kamikaze caterpillar munching its way closer and closer to the waiting jaws of a hungry cricket. You might wonder how the caterpillar could miss the ominous presence of cricket until you see the reverse angle and are reminded how good their camouflage is. Extraordinary. Read more
I’m pretty easily pleased, really. My needs are simple – good food, love, laughter and an occasional open road. Give me a pair of walking boots, a walking companion and some decent terrain and I’m in my element. These photos were taken in Australia’s stunning Blue Mountains. The vast mountain range provides walks for all levels, from a few hours to a few days long. There are sheer cliffs, waterfalls and lush green forests. Add one beautiful husband and it’s a place just made for taking photographs. Read more
One of the many things I love about travelling is the diversity to be found across our planet – diversity of people, language, culture, food, weather and landscape. So often, our food and culture is influenced by the landscape around us. If you are surrounded by sea you will likely eat lots of fish and seafood, if you have boggy earth you will burn turf. And if you have fields full of limestone, you will build walls. Travelling through northern Spain, close to the border with Portugal, we encountered these stone walls. I was immediately reminded of the stone walls found across the west of Ireland and which I thought were unique to our fair isle. The Spanish construction is a little different – I don’t think I have seen walls constructed around big stones in such a uniform way in Ireland. But the resemblance is striking. Amidst all the diversity there are always similarities. We’re not all that different, really. Read more
A change is as good as a rest. Or so they say. As my limbs were weary and my bones heavy from a summer of growing, harvesting and preserving, I took myself home to the motherland for some much-needed rest and recuperation. Read more
Yesterday, as I sat in my conservatory quietly reading & wondering if I would ever feel energetic again, I spotted my elderly neighbours in a nearby field hauling their hay bales in for winter storage. He was using a small cart, but she was using just a sheet, dragging two bales behind her at a time. They repeated this exercise over & over until the whole field was clear. Inspiration comes in many guises & I thought if they can muster the strength to get out & do what needs to be done, then so can I. Read more
Ants, birds, biting insects, blackfly, cabbage caterpillars, cats, cows, crickets, dogs, frost, heat, moles, moss, pea maggots, rain, weeds. Since the start of the growing season a catalogue of hindrances has tried to come between me and my vegetables. The latest to appear are caterpillars on my brassicas – my beautiful cabbages, cauliflower, broccoli, kale and Brussels sprouts. Read more
Nature is amazing. Sometime it feels like nature is working against you, like when it rains all summer long and your tomatoes don’t ripen. Other times, though, she does you a favour. Read more
I’ve never been good at sticking to the rules. Maybe I have a rebellious streak or maybe I simply have a logical mind and just can’t bring myself to slavishly follow rules I find to be arbitrary. And a lot of them seem to be arbitrary! Read more
The question people most often ask me about living in Lithuania is whether or not I miss Ireland. My answer is always the same – it’s not so much Ireland that I miss, but my family and friends. There are other things I miss occasionally, like the music and craic in a good Irish pub or living near the sea and the abundance of fish & seafood that the sea provides. But mostly it’s my friends and family that I miss. Read more
I love a good road trip. I love wide, open spaces and diverse scenery. I would far sooner be in a car travelling through stunning countryside than on a city tour, no matter how beautiful the architecture. Some of the most surprising and spectacular sights are between places of interest rather than in them. These are some of my favourite “on the way” shots from our European road trip two summers ago. Taken in Rioja, Spain, within a 15 minute period, they demonstrate the enormous variety of landscapes in the region. Think we might be due another visit. Read more
It feels like only a few days ago that my garden was awash with golden dandelions. All of a sudden the golden flowers are gone, only to be replaced with white seed heads. These incredibly intricate seed orbs have always been a fascination to me. When we were kids we used to blow them apart to tell the time – whatever number of blows it took to take all the seeds off the stem was inferred to be the current time. It never worked, of course, but that didn’t stop us from blowing flower after flower, in effect helping nature to spread the seeds and thus ensuring more dandelions the following year. Beautiful and effective. Read more
Bees amaze me. The amount of work they do is incredible. I keep some chilli plants in my sun room. I recently read that when keeping fruiting plants indoors where there are no bees you need to cross-pollinate the flowers yourself by gently sticking the tip of your finger into each flower in turn. The process takes a bit of time, but my plants are small and I only have a few of them, so it really doesn’t take too long. Then I look at our apple trees, completely covered in blooms. I can’t imagine how long it would take if I had to cross-pollinate all those individual flowers myself. Thank goodness for the bees, who tireless make their way from bloom to bloom, ensuring my tree is heavy with delicious apples later in the season. Seeing the bees enveloping the stamen with their tiny legs, clinging on as they extract the nectar for honey, is really quite fascinating. Read more
They say that beauty is in the eye of the beholder. One man’s weed is another man’s wildflower. Dandelions are in full bloom at this time of year. To me, they are beautiful – a sea of gold as far as the eye can see. All parts of the plant are edible – leaves, petals, seeds and even the roots. They are an all-in-one superfood and they’re free, yet we’re mowing them down at a rate of knots. Quite apart from their beauty and their use as food, dandelions are incredibly important to plant life in general. They are a key source of food for bees in early spring when they are just coming out of hibernation. Bees are essential to growing food and vegetables as they cross-pollinate flowers, enabling fruits and vegetables to develop. To me, perfectly manicured lawns devoid of daisies and dandelions are lifeless and insipid. I prefer my garden to be wild and free. Give me a host of golden dandelions any day. Read more
Whatever about me being a big kid, Arūnas is an even bigger one. He doesn’t do stationary – he likes to be on the move. Despite the motion blur you can still see the determination on his face to get higher and higher. It’s all part of his boyish charm, I guess. Luckily the swing was well cemented down – otherwise there probably would have been an injury. Read more
My Food Odyssey 