The boxes are not all unpacked in the new house but I have left it again to come back to beautiful Corris in Wales. The residency was booked long before I thought of selling and moving and naively when my house sold very quickly I assumed I would be well settled by September. Roll…
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Two weeks ago I sold my house and bought another. I had been thinking about it for about six months as for the past few years I have been struggling with a large mortgage. The process is by no means over – until contracts are signed there is still the potential for either…
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New Years day 2016 I am starting 2016 in a different frame of mind to any I ever remember having before. All my life I have been an optimistic person and I have been grateful to whatever quirk of nature or nurture made me like that. I’d wake up in the morning looking…
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I wrote the following piece in Achill last week. I was exhausted after working hard all summer and the break was great. There was no wifi in the house so I paid regular trips to Marty Mac’s in the evenings. Needless to say I’ve been so busy since I got back that I’m only getting…
DetailsI went to revisit Cow’s lane market yesterday before a meet up in Dunne and Crescenzi’s in South Frederick street with some friends from college in Galway many Moons ago. We call ourselves the Galway girls..duh! I love Cow’s lane market. It’s on Saturday mornings at the Christchurch end of Temple bar- I won’t attempt…
DetailsI had great plans for doing a lot of work when my daughter went back to college after time off to allow a badly broken and dislocated ankle to recover somewhat. A much anticipated stay in the Tyrone Guthrie centre at Annamakerrig at the end of February, where I would begin work at last…
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Some months ago I visited a friend’s house and her young daughter brought me to her playroom to show me her ‘Sylvanian families’ house. She did not have any of the furniture or Sylvanians for it and hoped to be able to save for them. The fervent tone of her voice reminded me of myself…
DetailsI’ve been thinking about the new thing Facebook has of putting together a summary of your year in pictures and posts. Something has stopped me sharing mine- list of successes for the year mostly. I’m not sure why – maybe I had a sense that it was overkill, like boasting again about the great things…
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I’ve been thinking about those wonderful people, often creative souls themselves- who allow random strangers to sleep on their couch/ spare bed and in so doing allow them the space to nurture their creativity or just to help them along when life is tough. It was one of the things that struck me when I…
DetailsThe shortlist is published for a competition you entered. You scroll through the names, feeling a rush of pleasure when you find your own name, or more likely a feeling of disappointment that you did not make the list. Or depression or envy. Anger even. They wouldn’t know a good short story if it…
DetailsThe joys of Autumn. It’s Tuesday morning after the bank holiday and the rain is pouring down. I write upstairs and we have dormer windows so it’s hard to miss the sound of dejected raindrops dying on the windows…and making sad patterns..oh dear. Time for another coffee. While the kettle is boiling I…
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Click and Collect- Cashing in on the twenty euro promise. You know how you scroll through the emails on your phone, half reading them. You read some, delete some and others go in the file marked ‘Later’ on some dusty shelf at the back of your mind.. Maybe on that lovely old bookcase that…
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