A Gold Medal at Bloom for WB Yeats

BLOOM - The Final!


When you get behind with something, it becomes ever harder to spur yourself into catching up.
I seem to be suffering quite badly this year with un-catch-up-ability.
My garden has gone to rack and ruin, my house looks like Miss Haversham's, and my blog feels largely abandoned.

But recently I had an email from Bloom, asking if I'd like to submit a design for next year's Show. All this year's designers will have received one. I don't think I would, but it made me realise I've never even got as far as posting that my garden won a Gold Medal at this year's Show.
I was thrilled. Stunned, but thrilled.
And to think I nearly wasn't present for the awards!
It was only because Niall, whose garden bordered mine, said, as we downed tools on the last day: 'So - that's it then! See you at 8am on Wednesday!'
In my naievity, I'd been thinking: 'At last, the garden's finished! A lie-in before Press Day arrives!'
Hah!
But thanks to Niall, I was on parade bright and early, and present to receive my award.

My Gold Medal, still sitting on the dresser amidst the dusty china

And I even made it onto the national news, and TV, and radio, and newspapers, and magazines...

A few of the newspaper and magazine cuttings, inc Sligo Now, The Irish Independent, The Irish Times and The Weekender

It was a lovely few days, the Show itself.
Not least because my brother, the Mad Cyclist from Edinburgh, and my sister from Suffolk came over to see it for themselves, which involved both of them getting on planes - and planes, as we all know, mean hassle and expense. (Wonder Brother was, alas, in Portugal - thoughtless boy!)
The In-Charge and Surfer Son came too. It didn't involve a plane ride, but proved far more problematic than either of my siblings' journeys. The treacherous Silver Beast decided that not enough attention was being paid to her, plus she had not been invited to accompany me to Dublin, so she trashed her alternator and broke down before they reached the county border. The poor menfolk had to re-group, borrow a car from dear DodoWoman and start their journey all over again.
Not amusing.
But it was lovely to see them all, and they all loved the garden.

The Irish President and Sabina, his wife, visited on Opening Day, and I presented them with a WB Yeats rose. Mrs Higgins told me how delighted they were with it, she said Michael D has planted a rose garden and this will be its centre-piece. As he is a Yeats scholar, I can believe that it will be.

The Irish President, Michael D, and Sabina visit my garden. In his speech to open Bloom 2015 (of which he is Patron), the President said that my garden had inspired him the most. Praise indeed!

Various other dignitaries came to visit - including the British Ambassador to Ireland and his wife who turned out to be old friends from London from another lifetime. Goodness, what a bubble I live in these days! I had no idea they were living in Dublin, and are so important!
Maud Gonne and WB Yeats himself were fleetingly spotted in the garden at one point, and over the days of the Show, other people came and sang, or recited poetry, and it was all very beatifully done.

Maud Gonne and Yeats. Poor Yeats, the most casual observer could have told him that his suit was in vain

The Orpheus Choir sang for us - their recital included The Lake Isle of Innisfree

More singers in the garden

Famous Irish poet Pat Boran recites The Lake Isle of Innisfree to the President and Mrs Higgins. Michael D could easily have recited it to us, no one would know Yeats better.

 

Gary Graham brings Leo Varadkar, Irish Minister for Health, to visit my garden

 
I remembered to ask the President to sign my garden visitor's book, but I totally forgot to ask Jane and Dominic, the British Ambassador, or Leo Varadkar, the Irish Minister for Health, or anyone of the others.
Ah well...

Happy memories.
Looking back, I think I was so engrossed in building the garden, I hadn't taken the actual Show end of things on board really. And truth to tell, I was pretty tired by the time it opened.

Too busy building the garden to think about the Show. Seamus was mad enough to let me loose on the digger...

I certainly hadn't thought about the medals, or not until Seamus said something about the judges one day.
I was appalled. How could I have overlooked something as fundamental as judges?  I've been to Chelsea and Bloom often enough...
By the week before the Show, the atmosphere in the show gardens was taughtening every day. Everyone except muggins was focused.
To be fair, I'd been asked to do the garden because of Yeats 2015, I hadn't set out to win a medal. But by the end of May, everyone around me was starting to get a touch of exam-fever, which is very contagious, whether you like it or not.
On the last day of the build, the Bear called me over.
He pointed a finger into my face and I knew he had something serious to say. I felt like a school kid caught on the hop. He didn't beat about the bush.
'Are you happy with your garden?' he asked.
I thought about it for a moment.
'Yes,' I said. It was the truth. The garden was, I suddenly realised, exactly as I'd planned it in my head.
'Then f**k everything else,' he said.
It was the best advice he could have given me. I went back to my B&B, climbed into bed and slept like a baby.

Opening Day started early with a Gold Medal

So winning a Gold Medal was like some huge bonus, and even better was the judges' return visit. Several of them had just flown over from the Chelsea Flower Show in London, which runs the week before Bloom. On their initial visit (when I had two minutes to explain any aspect of my design I wanted to), they told me they'd been asked not to patronise Bloom by marking any differently from how they'd have marked the gardens at Chelsea.
At the time, it made the palms of my hands clammy and my stomach go into spasm. Not having considered the goal posts at all, it didn't really help to have them suddenly illuminated in neon.

When they came back for the follow-up visit after the medals (a less nerve-racking affair), one of them was kind enough to say: 'We haven't really got anything to say to you. Your attention to detail is incredible. You've created a piece of theatre. It's wonderful.'
And, as they were leaving, another one turned back. 'I just wanted you to know,' she said, 'that the judges decision was unanimous.'

To me, their comments were even better than the Gold Medal itself.
And so was the response from the public. My garden had been in the media in the run up to Bloom, and had received lots of good publicity, but I hadn't expected to look out from my 'lair' - the pagoda tent Bloom provides next to your plot - and see crowds standing 5-deep trying to see into the garden, with, every now and again, a friend or acquaintance pushing through to come and say hello.
It was amazing to receive such a warm and wonderful reception.
I think it was the only thing that kept me upright.
I was so tired, I could have crawled into Yeats' little cabin and slept for the entire 5 days.

Yeats' cabin with the Mary Cronin's Cloths of Heaven forming a sun-shield outside the front door, his 9 bean rows and bee hive hidden on the right and his wild 'lawn' and apple tree hidden on the left. My pagoda in the background

An overview of the garden from the front corner

Martha Quinn's fabulous sculpture 'The Waters and the Wild' - forming a 21st century window into Yeats' imagination

Looking towards the little path leading down to the lake. On the table the In-Charge's lovely drawing of Lissadell

The path down to the Lough Gill, Nik Purdey's mural forms the backdrop

Colin Scott's amazing White Birds - ceramic sculptures 'flying' amongst the trees on the lake shore

But by mid-June I was totally exhausted.
The decision was taken, around the time of the Show, to move my Yeats Garden back to Sligo.
It was great to know that, after just 5 days on show, the garden wasn't going to be 'binned', so I was delighted, but it wasn't so brilliant having to start from scratch, re-work the design and build it all over again. It was like having to re-do a maths exam.
But by some miracle we managed it and had it ready for Yeats' 150th birthday, 13 June, when - joy of joys! - Joanna Lumley came to open it.

The garden re-designed for Sligo. It now lives beside the Model Arts Centre on The Mall

Joanna Lumley opening my garden in Sligo. What a star she is!  Pic courtesy of Val Robus

What more can you say about someone who is already adored the world over?
Only one thing springs to mind, really.
She was Absolutely Fabulous.
She loved my garden. And I did remember to ask her to sign my Bloom Visitor's Book!
Of course, I gave her a WB Yeats rose as well.

Joanna's lovely message in the visitor's book, underneath the signature of Yeats' grand daughter.

The Park is Blooming

Bloom 9

I know it seems ridiculous, but I haven't had time to think since I last wrote anything here.
The days have telescoped into one long Bloom-bound roller coaster.
It's exhausting - but fun.

I'm actually living up in Dublin now, in a B&B just outside the gates of Phoenix Park.
I may never go home again. I have fallen totally in love with the park
It is a pleasure, going to work - driving past the great green spaces, the deer, the dog walkers, the runners and cyclists, past the huge chestnut trees all laden with candles,
The chestnut trees at home are miniature by comparison, and rarely have the luxury of so many flowers. One side of the tree might have a sprinkling, but even then the wind will find a way to snake around and bludgeon them to death.

Wonderful Phoenix Park

It's hard to believe that we've already had well over a week of building time.
Where did it go?
Yet already it seems aeons ago that I sat and looked at a bare, waterlogged mess thinking: 'This is it. Oh ye gods and little fishes - what have I done?'

This is how it all begins. One site. Water free. Grass temporary. Mud permanent

9 days later, the whole place is transformed. It's still heaving with heavy machinery, more people come on site every day, deliveries arrive constantly, everyone is borrowing this digger, that tape, a bit of space for trees that have just arrived, a barrow-load of sand, a dozen blocks...
It is all chaotic, yet out of the mess and mud and mêlée, gardens are emerging. And despite the din of cement mixers and heavy engines, you can always hear laughter and birds singing.

If you've read any of my other posts about Bloom, you may remember that I was upside down trying to decide which contractor I should appoint. I went for Seamus in the end. Not an easy decision, but it felt right.
Well, it's good to trust your instincts. Seamus is fantastic.
He has that ability - rare enough, I find - to make you sigh with relief  and know that the grown-ups have arrived whenever he turns up. I say 'turns up', but in fact he's generally the first person on the site in the morning and quite often the last to leave. 
And he knows exactly what he's doing, although at one point, I did wonder. 
He levelled out the site, gave me a spray can and told me to mark out the garden. With Glenn's help, I laboriously measured out a grid, counted this way and that, consulted my plan, um-ed and ah-ed and finally committed my design to the ground. Seamus turned up, glanced around, climbed onto a digger and immediately ploughed it all up. 
'That was a useful hour we spent,' I said to Glenn. He laughed.
But, what-da-ya-know! When he'd finished digging, shaping and levelling, Seamus was only a few inches out in one place.
I don't know why I'm saying nice things about him - he laughs at me, teases me mercilessly and is still promising that we'll have a row before opening day.
But he's a gas and the first person I'd go if I wanted advice.

Seamus glanced at the site plan and immediately trashed it

All my plants are landing in from distant Sligo.
Friends have brought up van-loads, and Sligo Haulage kindly came to the rescue and brought all the trees for me. What stars people are! 
We wrapped the trees in cling film (well, pallet wrap) and packed them lying down into a 30 foot rigid. I didn't look too closely - I didn't dare. My heart might have fallen out of my mouth.
But they are all fine. Seamus tells me it's how they come in from Italy. (Of course, what he carefully didn't mention is that the ones coming in from Italy are in opulent, sun-nourished leaf, whereas my Sligo-raised trees are brow-beaten and redolent of a cold spring!)

Sligo Haulage brought the trees - wrapped in cling film

Sligo, as well as being distinctly un-sun-kissed, isn't as far as Italy, but it seems a long way off at the moment.
I went back at the weekend, after a hectic day of planting said trees.
'We'll get them in and send you home to your husband and your dogs,' Seamus said. He also said: 'We'll move them around until you're happy with how they look.'
Liar. 
We moved one awkward willow from location A to location B, after which he said, 'That's it! You've used your 'move a tree' card! Get on with it, woman!'
It was accompanied, as most things are, with an infectious laugh. 
I like people who laugh.

It seemed a long way home at the end of the day. 
Lucy's friend, Vincent has sweetly lent me a little runaround as no one was able to loan me a van for Bloom. He was very hesitant, and seemed to think I might not want it, but I'm thrilled to bits. Lucy has dubbed it my  'little sporty number'. It's surprisingly roomy, drives itself and knows the way back to Sligo.
It doesn't know it's way round Dublin though. We got lost, and neither of us knew which way to go. But we're safe in the Park. There are walls at the edges that hold us in. 
But finding the way home was easy. I fell into bed and slept like the proverbial baby, but there was plenty to fill my 36 hours there too - catching up with the artists whose pieces are part of the garden, with the never-ending barrage of emails, with the lists of lists of things I still haven't done, with transport to be sorted, plants to be cossetted, blankets to be sourced for packing a mural...
I ended up singing aloud in the car on the way back to Dublin to stop myself falling asleep. (It works!)

The sporty little number that Vincent has lent me. I love her.

So here we are at Day 9. Nearly Day 10.
Yeats' cabin has been built by the wonderful Niall Millar, his wife Brenda and their friend Joe McGowan. It looks just dinky and I'd really like to keep it as it is - simply 'wattled', but daubed it will be - lightly, in a home-made, inexpert, rough and ready sort of way. The way a young guy would do it if he'd never done it before and (let's be honest) if he'd got a bit fed up with daubing when he'd really rather be sitting by the lake writing poetry and enjoying the view.

Niall, Brenda and Joe building Yeats' cabin

Still lots to do.
Lots to plant. Stuff to somehow be got from Sligo. Stuff to somehow be got...
The Somme-like mud has dried up. Let's hope it doesn't return.
Thank goodness Saffy and Sarah are coming up on Friday to help me plant.
Otherwise I'd probably slip behind with the schedule. 
Heaven forbid. 
Seamus and I might fall out and have a row.

Bah, Humbug, New Year!

I'm not really a New Year person.
Despite the In-Charge's cousin talking me through 'the year is a circle, New Year joins seamlessly onto the end of last year' - that still doesn't work for me.
It's always seemed like a straight line, the year - so 31st December appears as some sort of awful cliff that you fall off, willy nilly. Yet another leap of faith.
Sadly, I guess that makes me a member of the flat-earth society.
I'm not proud.

I have tried.
Indeed, I do try.
No doubt my family, at this point, would say 'you're very trying' - but despite all, something isn't working.
It's all a bit like this really, New Year:

Whatever, this circle thing just isn't happening for me.
It's about colour somewhere along the line. (There you go - 'line' - see what I mean?)
Colour, whether I like it or not, is the be-all and end-all.
Christmas teems with colour. It jumps out and socks you one, grabs you round the neck and sucks you in until you drown in it, until colour has replaced the blood in your veins, the air in your lungs, the thoughts in your brain.
New Year isn't about colour. It is clean and cold and brightly, icily blue.

Or - as in today's case - wet and grey and rather down-at-heel.
But whatever the reality, it's a chilling contrast to the warmth of Christmas, and definitely outside my comfort zone. It's all about new beginnings, starting all over again - like Maths homework that you got wrong the first time round. 'Return to Go' and definitely do not collect 200...
It's the point when, were it not for the chocolates, empties and new socks lying around, you'd wonder if Christmas had just been some sort of tantalising dream.

Sorry, all you New Year fans out there.
Please tell me, where am I going wrong?

We went to some lovely parties over Christmas, and even had one here, but last night was a quiet night in.
I didn't go to bed - I couldn't be that Scrooge-ish. We watched a movie (an excellent, if rather distressing one, as it turned out - The Flowers of War, with Christian Bale), but then we had an unexpected treat.
Queen and Adam Lambert live at Central Hall, Westminster.
I've not exactly been switched on this last while, so Adam Lambert and I haven't been personally introduced until now. As with most things, I'm behind the times, but it's never too late to catch up.
Last night's gig was, to quote an old friend, 'bloody-marvellous'.
Freddie Mercury - sleep on, sweet singer, rest in peace. Miss you as we do, your legacy is in safe hands. Adam Lambert is a worthy heir.

And just in case you missed it - here's a little snippet for you

And if you need any more convincing:

Still not sure?

Here's one for the road:

Oh, and London's New Year fireworks were amazing too.
Queen thoughtfully paused to let them take centre stage at midnight.

Happy New Year everyone, from rather a dark, damp, colourless west coast.

Bewitched

I actually went to the ballet recently.
That's about the third time in twenty odd years. How sad is that?
I love ballet, but we don't get a huge amount of it here in the North West, and when we do, I miss it, or am too broke, or hear about it after the event.
But this time I actually made it to the one and only performance.

Ballet Ireland Swan Lake photo by Ros Kavanagh, taken from Internet

I have my friend, the Goddess of Plenty to thank, because if she hadn't invited me to go with her, I'd never have known it was on.
Ballet Ireland in Sligo, dancing Swan Lake. Goodness gracious.

DodoWoman joined our happy band, and when the three of us arrived at the theatre in Sligo, we wondered for a moment if we'd got the wrong night and were in for a Panto instead. The foyer was heaving with  hordes of excited children.
I have to confess, my heart sank slightly as we took our seats in the balcony - three solid rows of young kids behind us, more on either side. I wondered whether it would be Swan Lake to Tchaikovsky or to a stream of burbling chatter.
At least that took my mind off what sort of performance Ballet Ireland had in store. The last ballet I'd seen on our relatively modest stage had been performed by a very reduced company. Lovely, but not the full monty, and I although I was just happy to be there, deep down I didn't really want a compromised Swan Lake - I wanted the traditional, full, unexpurgated version in all its moonlit, feathery glory.

Ballet Ireland photo from the Internet

I have heard the music many times in the intervening years, and it never fails to move me, but there is nothing like hearing it in the hush of a darkened theatre, waiting for the curtains to rise. What I hadn't expected was to be transported, with the first bars of the score, back to my own childhood, sitting in the stalls at Covent Garden at the tender age of eleven, staring at the rich velvet curtains, waiting, waiting, hardly able to breathe with excitement. As the ballet unfolded, I recalled every nuance of that first magical experience, the haunting music flooding through me like adrenaline, the dancers an enchanted dream just beyond reach - the exquisite romance of it all, the pathos, the heartbreak.


It was a fabulous performance, that night in Sligo. The Swan Lake I had fallen in love with all those years ago, not changed, or reduced, or modernised, just the tried and tested classic that bewitched me as a child.

Wonderfully, it betwitched the countless children in the audience too.
There wasn't a peek out of anyone during the whole evening.
Thank you, Ballet Ireland.
And thank you, Talentui Goddess  

Photo: www.balletandoperaireland.com  taken from the Internet

Indian Summer

October cornflowers

Today, for the first time, there was a real autumn chill and dampness in the air first thing. It was still and grey, and hinted that perhaps our long, lovely summer is drawing to a close.But now I feel as though perhaps I dreamt that. It is warm and sunny again, I've just picked a bunch of cornflowers and paused to admire the pansies and cyclamen in the courtyard bed. And I've been working outside all morning in my shirt sleeves again - gardening, inevitably. Determined to get all my projects finished, my rooted rose cuttings planted, and my bulbs in today, because tomorrow I will be back at Clare's house.

Cyclamen and pansies

I've been helping my friend Clare to create a garden out of the desert of gravel which came with the house. It's great fun, and the hard work has been completely mitigated by the group of like-minded friends who have pitched in with every tool they own and dug, trundled barrows, measured, levelled, painted and heaved alongside me. It's not hugely big, the garden, but it's on a slight incline, so nothing is straightforward, but hey! - after a hard day's work, she has a little patio!
Joy!
But also a lot of stuff lying around.
And piles of mud.
And sand. And gravel.
And a vast heap of trip-hazards - like wooden stakes and trellis.
Hmmm.
Still - I guess it's a start.

I want to get it finished before autumn actually does kick in.
The trouble is, it feels like - what? - late August, early September? Some days feel like July.
It's been one of those blissful summers when time has seemed largely immaterial. The parasol has been up in the courtyard since June, the dogs' sunbathing beds are left out more often than not, and the table outside the backdoor is so much in use, it is covered in clutter.

I haven't caught up with real time yet, but the truth is, we are not far off half-term, and, almost unawares, the Models and I are gently slipping back into our term-time routine. I found myself looking anxiously at the New Girls this morning, trying to gauge how much their infant feathers have grown since yesterday. Not much is the answer, but they are coming - slowly. They will need them soon. I may even have to knit them little pinafores like these dinky ones I saw on Facebook a while ago.

Not my photo or my hens, but a great idea. Thank you, whoever posted it on Facebook

The trouble is, my knitting needles are still full of pole warmer. The one I knitted for Beltra Country Market two years ago has faded to oblivion, turned to a crisp in the teeth of the wind, hail, rain and sun it's been subjected to, and looks decidedly travel-stained from all the passing traffic on the road. However, the new one is nearly finished, and I think there might even be some of the neon orange yarn left over.

The new pole warmer is growing every day

Would the Yah Bird like neon orange, do you think? Jil, our Wwoofer loved it - and looked stunning in her wonderful neon fleece. It was all the rage in Paris too, so you never know. It might be just what the Yah Bird needs to set her up in the world.

Jil and SuperModel at the beach

It's been a great Wwoofing-summer. Apart from the lovely Jil, we had Chloe back for another visit which was wonderful. So lovely to see her again and catch up. She helped knit a bit of the new pole warmer while she was here, and trimmed lots of box hedges, and did a hundred and one other things in the garden. We spent long, lovely, sunny days out there together, chatting, laughing and catching up as we pottered about and weeded the vegetables. We went to a Garden Festival in Galway one glorious Sunday while she was here, and had a great day wandering around Claregalway Castle grounds, surrounded by flowers, food and families enjoying themselves.

Claregalway Garden Festival in July

And there was Marko - and Olivia and Marie Christine. It seems like years ago that they were here, sitting in the Moon Garden knitting, chattering away in Canadian French to each other, interspersed with regular cries of 'Oh-oh! Something weird...' when they'd either dropped a stitch or accidentally created several new ones.

Perhaps it is the end of the summer. It must be or why else would I be looking back over months of memories and sunshine. But it's lovely to have so much to look back on. Paris; several visits to Suffolk to see my parents; the haze of ivory lace and sunshine that was my brother's wedding; the In-Charge's Mega Birthday complete with bunting, balloons and marquees; all the Country Shows we went to, the gardens we visited; our trip to Dublin... Not to mention walks on the beach, the Great Rescue and subsequent Hen Central, SuperModel suddenly starting to grow up, the garden looking the best it's looked for years.

Hens are family, not food. Hens are family, not food. Hens are family... Hens are family...but very tasty NOT food

Actually it will be nice to have a rainy day or two, so that I can sit down and catch up with everything. Look at all the photographs I took and perhaps even record a few of them on these pages for posterity.
But don't get me wrong - I'm not wishing for rain - heaven forbid!
I've still got too much do get done outdoors for that.
I've to finish clearing the bank and planting.
And Clare's garden isn't nearly ready yet. There's a raised bed to raise, an archway to put up, stones to be removed, compost to be hauled, trees to be planted, roses to be put in, bulbs to be bulbed, plants to be positioned, a shed to be painted....

Better scrub that line about a nice rainy day or two.
I am NOT even thinking about rain.

Visits and Visitors

It's been a strange week - one of those weird time-warps when the days seem to have gone by in a flash, and yet last Sunday feels like a lifetime away.
Perhaps it's because the weather has been so strange - some perfect, still, hot summer days and others of constant, despondent mizzle or gusty winds.
Sometimes my wwoofers, Olivia and Marie Christine, have wwoofed, at others they have sat in the kitchen knitting, or curled up in their tiny sitting room watching movies, drizzle misting the window panes.
But despite all, we have taken advantage of every good moment and got a lot done. 

And in between the endless gardening, it's been a week of visits and visitors.

On Monday I went with a friend to see Elizabeth Temple's stunning garden at Salthill in Donegal.
I first went last year, and have been longing to go again, and introduce another garden-fanatic to its joys.
More of that anon, but for any garden lover visiting the north west of Ireland, it is a must-see.

Part of the beautiful gardens at Salthill

One of Salthill's many lovely roses - possibly Abram Darby?

An old friend from England came over for a couple of days. He's thinking of buying a holiday house here, so he and the In-Charge spent happy hours cruising around Donegal and Sligo, looking at possible properties.
His family come from Donegal, and he loves coming back.
It was nice to see him, and catch up, although this time he didn't bring his gorgeous wife and children.

Some German friends, on their annual holiday in Ireland, came to re-visit our garden.
It is always nice to see our garden through someone else's eyes.
It makes me appreciate how much we have achieved over the years, and how lovely it is.
On my own, I tend to fasten on the goosegrass sticking out of the astilbe, the weeds that - since yesterday - have started springing in a newly cleared bed, the shrubs that I still haven't pruned...
Despite the hours of work, the list never gets any shorter.
But the Germans claimed not to see any of those things and took a host of photos.
Here are a few of them:

 Frau Speckle

The prince of the lily pond (still un-kissed)

Our lovely sycamore tree

 And:

My beautiful Model Dog

They also invited us to supper, our German friends, and - taking the wwoofers with us - we spent a happy evening in their holiday cottage, eating, drinking, chatting and watching the sun slowly sink into Enniscrone bay.
Summer, lovely summer.

More friends - family really - came another day to look at the garden and have tea with us, which forced us, once again, to down tools.
'We gardeners don't make the most of our gardens,' Sylvia said to me as we wandered around, comparing notes on this year's flowers. 'We spend so many hours working, but not enough just sitting - soaking it up.'
How right she is.

In one of Elizabeth Goudge's books, I once read that the elderly matriarch of the family had a seat in her garden 'at every place one might possibly wish to sit down', and - as far as the budget allows - I have tried to follow suit. But despite that, I rarely drift from bench to bench.
I'm more like a hen - head down, bottom up in one of the beds - but in my case, not pecking, just weeding, weeding, weeding.

On the way to the airport to drop our friend off for his flight home, the In-Charge took the girls to Foxford Woollen Mills, and they came home with big smiles on their faces and big carrier bags of scarves and blankets - prized souvenirs of their Irish trip.
And then yesterday it was the Strandhill Show.

I think Strandhill is probably the first of the local summer Shows, and Beltra is probably the last, at the beginning of September. I don't always go to them (I'm often head down, bottom up) but Beltra Country Market had taken a few tables in the craft marquee, so, after another morning of miserable mizzle, the wwoofers and I headed off at lunchtime.
Happily the sun came out as we drove around the coast, and by the time we arrived at the grounds of the once beautiful Lisheen house, it had turned into a hot, summer afternoon, perfect for a parish show - or fete as it would be called in England.

Poor Lisheen

I don't think we sold a vast amount, but everyone enjoyed themselves enormously.

Fabulous seaside setting for a gymkhana

Prize winning cakes

Someone brought their pet birds. I've never seen a Canary before

Anxiously awaiting the results of the dog show

In the craft marquee

When we got home that evening, it was to find the In-Charge entertaining some unexpected visitors - a couple of our own age. Apparently she and her sister had lived in our house for a summer when she was 10. Their parents had gone to Sweden on a three month internship, leaving them in the care of a country Rector and his wife. It was so interesting to hear her recollections of our 'secret garden' - apparently a complete wilderness in those days; to know that the time she spent here has become an idyllic memory; and to learn that coming back after all these years hadn't been a disappointment.
We loved meeting them both. They are, in a way, another little piece of our jigsaw, another of the limitless secrets our house has been coaxed into revealing.

A week of visitors.
And only one has been unwelcome.
The fox has called - twice. He must steal in like a shadow over the garden fence.
We have lost two of our hens this week, a sad waste of feathers at the bottom of the orchard our only clue as to their fate.

There are some visitors you can do without.