The Week

BLOOM 7

Where do the weeks go?

The hours have been turned into minutes, the days into blips.
My life has been hijacked by a ravenous time-eating Bloom-machine.
Somehow, it's almost Sunday again.
But, before I go into another tail-spin, I need to remind myself that I have achieved a good bit in this whirlwind week.

Last Sunday was Easter Day. I worked all day, paperwork - planting - paperwork - planting. At least the sun shone and it was balmy and spring-like, and we did stop in the evening. My friend DodoWoman had invited us for supper. It was delicious - and wonderful to switch off for a few hours.

Monday was,  of course, a bank holiday. Officially that is - there are no bank holidays in this house at the moment, nor will there be for the foreseeable future!
The sun shone as we piled the dogs into the car, hitched on the little trailer and headed out.
Not on a glorious picnic, but plant-hunting.


Eddie Walsh, the owner of Lissadell House, had kindly invited me to go and dig up some of the candelabra primulas that were bred there over a hundred years ago. I'd asked him if I could - they will be a perfect addition to my Yeats garden.
It couldn't have been a nicer day and the Model Dogs were thrilled to be going on an adventure.
(Rather meanly, we hadn't shown them the leads, forks or gardening gloves.) 

The sea at Lissadell

King's Mountain behind the beach at Lissadell. SuperModel chasing the seagulls

The ModelDogs practising good behaviour

Happy Days!
It was heaven at Lissadell. The sun shone and the sea sparkled like molten silver through the bare trees.
The Models gambolled on the beach (you have to gambol in Spring) and lay in the sea, and grinned inanely, but all too soon they were on their leads being told to behave themselves as Eddie and Constance welcomed us, and took us to the primula-dotted woods. Thank heavens - moments later, a couple of deer went running through the trees and Model Dog nearly took my hand off at the wrist as she leapt to the chase - she is a deer-hound cross, after all. I just managed to hang on to her and (to their chagrin) they both stayed on leads while I dug.

We took lots of photos while we were at it. The In-Charge is going to draw the house, with iconic Benbulben to one side, to make a print for my Yeats garden. Yeats and Lissadell are a bit like strawberries and cream, they kind of go together.

Lissadell and Benbulben (and SuperModel, of course)

But we didn't linger very long - we had more calls to make, so we bundled the Models and my two buckets of primulas back into the car, and headed off to Brendan's garden.
What was left of Brendan's garden that is.
The dear man has dug most of it up for me, and plants in every container known to man (and several heretofore unknown) confronted me inside his gates. I knew at first glance that our small trailer wasn't going to cut the mustard with that lot, and in any case, Brendan wasn't there.

After watering a few things that weren't sure if they were enjoying the heatwave or not, we headed off to Nazareth House to fill the trailer with dead leaves.
They must have thought I was balmy when I asked if it was OK. I mean, who waltzes in and offers to sweep up your dead leaves and take them away?
We used our tarpaulin like a giant bag, filled the trailer and headed home.
By then, the Models had forgotten the beach at Lissadell and were less than impressed with their day out.

The silent road to Dublin

On Wednesday, we rose in the dark and headed out into a world devoid of sound and people.
It was cold in the blue of the morning. Fog drifted like milky smoke in the fields, turning dawn into a mystical sacrament, the sun a distant red god veiled in the sky, the bare trees spreading their arms in hushed worship.
We passed unseen through their morning ritual.

Three hours later, when we got to Dublin, it was just another busy day, our dawn flight faded with the mist.
I spent the day at Bord Bia, meeting other garden designers; the People who Make Bloom Happen; the Health and Safety officers; the PR team; the tea ladies...
It was a good day - tiring but very informative. They were all human, and nice, enthusiastic and helpful. It made my project seem - paradoxically - more manageable but also more terrifying. It was good to meet people for whom this is challenging but routine, but it also reinforced the ticking clock deadlines, the reality of having to translate my vision into a spectacle for many, many eyes.
We drove home watching the sun - back to a deep, fiery red ball - falling through a milky, misting sky. In the real, real world, nothing had changed. The day had just been handful of insubstantial hours.

Friday was the launch of the Yeats Day celebrations.
I was invited to go and mix with the great and the good, and afterwards I had lunch with Lucy.

Later we inspected my beech tree which had been delivered to her yard in our absence. We stood and looked at it in dismay. It was not what either of us was expecting, and it certainly was not going to fit the bill.
One of her chaps joined us, on his way home for the weekend. The two of them stood looking at it, comparing it with several beeches they had planted in the last while.
Minutes later I found myself being taken to look at some of those vastly superior specimens.
'Shall we?' said Lucy.
'We could,' he replied.
The two other lads, who'd just gone home were called back. The digger was dug out of the shed, the truck was brought to the site. Within what seemed like minutes a tree had been lifted from the ground, my poor, unsuitable and unloved specimen had been put into the hole (where it can quietly grow into itself) and the new tree was being loaded onto the truck.

Lucy and her team

And, bless them all, instead of going home, they then drove it, and the other few trees that had arrived that morning, out to Jack's and spent I don't know how long potting them up.
Some people are just totally wonderful.

Whiskey time again.
Wholly inadequate.
Again.

And today is Saturday. The week has turned full circle faster than light.
On Saturdays, lots of people chill out, watch sport, put their feet up.
That would be nice. Not the sport, but the feet up bit.
But Brendan's garden was calling and - yet again - Jack came up trumps.
With his trailer and Dutch trolleys, he drove me out to Calry where Brendan was waiting, bless him.
Sunshine, hail and a chilly breeze notwithstanding, we loaded - and loaded - and loaded.
Now Brendan's garden is in my yard, all six trolleys-full, not to mention bags, trays, tubs, fridge doors (he's an inventive chap, Brendan), buckets and basins.

Jack, the ModelDogs and Brendan's garden 

I call it 'my garden at Bloom'.
It isn't my garden at all.
It is a garden being created by a tireless, amazing, generous team of fabulous people.
(And two dogs.)



.

The Morning After

BLOOM 6

 

It's amazing what a good night's sleep can do for you.
Sleep has been a bit here-and-there-ian, a fickle bedfellow recently.
While tiredness, inevitably, has been a Siamese twin.
Is it not ever thus?
However, this morning I feel as fresh as a daisy, as my mother used to say.

I suppose there is truth in the old adage. Not about daisies - but about the enemy you know being less fearful than the one you don't.
The trees for my Yeats garden at Bloom have certainly been a foe beyond the gates - but, in tree terms, this was the week that was. Bad enough for me, but I don't even want to think about how it's been for Jack.
Jack, as you may recall, has put his shoulder to the Bloom-wheel and now also goes under the alternative title of 'My Hero'.
He spent last week, in gales, rain, mizzle and more gales, gouging, slinging and lifting trees out of the ground, into pots, out of pots, to this location, to that location and generally getting soaked, re-soaked and beyond frazzled.
All - I am reliably informed - without losing it.
Some trick.

As you can probably tell, I wasn't there.
I wasn't idle last week - I'm feeling the need to justify myself here, I just put in my hours elsewhere. My only contribution to the Tree Operation was sleepless nights.
A futile offering indeed.
Yesterday, I drove down to Jack's armed with a bottle of good whiskey.
It seemed wholly, woefully inadequate.

The deep trenches gouged in the verge of his laneway told their own sorry tale of overburdened vehicles in-coming.
We reviewed the trees in minute detail. They are all on drips in his Intensive Care Ward, as he calls it, and no patient in any ward has either been better cared for or had a more probing doctor's round than ours.
They are all in one place, they are enormous and they look great - but, admittedly, it is a bit early to say. They might still suffer from fatal arrests and turn up their muddy toes. I hope not. I feel bad enough wrenching them from their cosy, unremarkable homes.
Or rather, having them wrenched.

I came home and spent the rest of the afternoon with a tape measure and a bag of flour in the orchard.

The In-Charge, at my request, had cordoned off a plot the size of the garden at Bloom. I need to get a feel for the reality of it, trees and all.
The hens thought it was a terrific new game, and followed on my heels like the birds in Hansel and Gretel, but eventually even they got bored with eating it - white, self-raising wouldn't be high on their list.
The trees are big, there's no doubt about it, but they need to be. They need to look mature, like they've always been there.
I still have flutters of unease. Suppose they are too big? Suppose they die? HOW am I to get them to Dublin in one piece - in leaf, by then? Suppose they don't come into leaf - dead trees don't come into leaf...  Suppose, suppose, suppose...
But at least I now have them - they are safe, in one place, in the ICU and for the moment at least, present, correct and ticked off.
At some level I suppose something has relaxed, because I slept like the proverbial baby.
Even though I wasn't the one drinking the whiskey.

And this morning, Easter Day, despite the battering, freezing, howling weather we have had this week, my garden is calm and still and full of timid flowers.
Perhaps I am calm and still and full of timid optimism.
For today anyway.

Easter Sunday

It is snowing outside.
When I think back to all the days and weeks when I'd have given anything for a bit of snow, and we never saw a single flake! It was too busy blanketing most of the UK and Europe to give us a look in.
And now, on Easter Day, when you want the sun to shine and the daffodils to sing in the garden, what happens?

I don't think it's going to settle, and I have no expectations of waking up to a winter wonderland either, which is a shame - if it's going to snow, it might as well do it properly, and April Fool's would be an appropriate occasion.
But whatever I wake up to, I won't be sorry to see the end of March.
What a month its been.
A month full of buts.

The sun has shone - pretty well continuously - but the east wind has been like a scythe.

Benbulben and Knocknarea, Sligo's iconic mountains

Benwisken and Benbulben bathed in hazy sunshine

We've had the lowest tide of the year, but you had to be dressed like the Michelin Man to enjoy the beach.

The biggest beach of the year

The daffodils are in full swing in the garden, but for the first year I can remember, the Shirotae isn't even thinking of poking its nose out. And who can blame it?
So no white blossom this March.

SuperModel has been to be spayed, but now she's back to wondering if she can trust us. I suppose, when you think about it, it's not surprising. Hopefully we'll catch up to where we left off when her wound heals up and stops hurting.

Poor baby - feeling very sorry for herself

My gorgeous son flew home for a brief visit over St Patrick's weekend, which was heaven, but now I don't know when I'll see him again.

An Englishman in New York

My sore throat and cold have gone but the cough has settled in comfortably for the duration.

Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear.

But on the plus side - I've done lots of work in the garden and everything hasn't QUITE spiralled out of control as it usually does at this time of year.

The TeenQueen (pre-op, anyway) really was starting to think that life in this tiny corner of Ireland might be rather wonderful after all.

What a looh-la. The TeenQueen, when she thought I wasn't looking, squashed into the cat's bed

At last! Behaving like a proper lurcher!

We've made the mind-boggling decision to actually go on holiday later this year - life, debt and the state of the nation notwithstanding - and that is definitely one for the books. It's been 5 long years, after all, since the last Great Escape!

Yesterday's Easter Bonnet Parade and Egg Hunt was a ball at Beltra Country Market, and later on I got rid of a load of household clutter by taking it to a Jumble Sale in aid of local animal charities. Definitely a Win/Win, I'd say! I hope they raised lots of money.

My friend DodoWoman

Wondrous bonnets

My friend Axe-Woman, who (understandably) won first prize

The Stitch & Bitch group I wanted to start has started, and it's not only huge fun, but we're all learning masses. Can you believe I've managed to crochet daffodils (even though I've now lost my crochet hook!)


And I've even achieved my ambition of being a lot thinner by Easter!
But that was before I ate three doughnuts on the way home from Ballina the other day.
(Don't even ask.
I have no idea.)


All in all - a bit of a mixed month. Like most months.

But today is Easter Day.
So I'd like to leave you with something special.
There's no chocolate to speak of in this house (and certainly no doughnuts) but I have something far more beautiful to offer you.
Alas, it was not made by me, it was created by the incredibly talented, clever and crafty lady of Attic 24 fame. I hope she won't mind me sharing it with you. It certainly deserves to be shared far and wide.
(Now you understand why I HAD to know how to crochet daffodils!)

So, snow or no snow, thin or fat, with family or without, gardening or otherwise - I hope you're having a lovely Easter.

The Mad Hatter's State of Mind

It's been a funny old Easter. One of those years when you are dimly aware that something is happening - elsewhere - but the festivities have passed over your head.

The In-Charge and I are largely recovered from our joint illness, but remain in a state of spineless exhaustion. The slightest exertion - sometimes even coming downstairs first thing in the morning - is enough to reduce me to a grease spot on the floor. He feels much the same, which is most unlike him.
What is it with this flu?

I have to say the weather doesn't help. The miraculous sunshine of two weeks ago is but the vestige of a memory, and we are back to rain and chilly inclemency.
Hello Ireland.


But all is not woe.

Easter - the moment for millinery genius. A wonderful bird's nest of a hat

The Mad Hatter's Parade at the Easter Market went off with a flourish, and cupcakes and little chocolate eggs were handed out with gay abandon.

Another winning hat. And definitely a winning smile!

Also, we have planted the two blossom trees where the elm once stood so tall and proud.
I'm convinced they have already grown three inches and will be in full flower by tomorrow morning.

And I have been happily curled up reading my friend's book, Goodbye Mr Smith, while eating a great deal of chocolate. It's an account of how she came to move here from Germany, and the wonderful friendship she struck up with the old man who was her neighbour until he died a few years ago. It is delightful, warm and vibrant and I can hear her voice in every sentence. I am enjoying it hugely.

Moreover, we have just returned from our favourite beach where the sun even shone for a brief and startling moment, and the dogs raced and chased and rolled in the sand in an ecstasy of happiness.

Rolling in unison. (As opposed to rolling in something horrible!) They've done it since they were puppies

Top Dog found a trophy which he carried to the end of the beach and then ate.

Top Dog likes seaweed

Alas, the silver beast is still sulking, and remains in lock-up, but my dear friend has once again donned her halo and angel's wings and flown to the rescue. Her little green car is parked in the yard and has declared itself ready and willing to convey us anywhere we choose to go - which has so far included the market on Saturday, a delightful supper party with its owner last night and the beach today.

Thank you friend.
Thank you, little green car.

The silver beast shall hear of your selfless reliability.
Perhaps it will think twice before giving up the ghost in future.
It could take one Mad Hatter's message to heart.

A hat apart

My friend's Dodo Hat bore this message on the back: 'Extinction is only a state of mind'