Just keep breathing

We've got the builders in today, and everything's upside down. I hate it when everything's upside down. 😳

I'm up early (very early) being ineffective. 

Note to self: Just keep breathing, and drink lots of tea! 

Wheelie Bin Stencils

Over here in leafy Ealing we're in the throes of a revolution. Big changes are afoot ... and not everyone is totally chuffed about what's in the pipeline.

The local council has abandoned the weekly black bin-bag collections, and, having given us all not one - but two - HUGE wheelie bins, is now planning on collecting our rubbish on a fortnightly basis. We'll have recyclables carried off one week and non-recyclables the next.

On the school run this morning we came upon this graveyard for our old recycling bins.

Ealing Council's new wheelie bin project swings into motion

Half-term hols in the green heart of Ulster ...

We've spent the half term holidays back in the green heart of Ulster where I grew up, and they were a bit of a treat. The sun shone, the hawthorn bloomed, the beech trees burst out the fresh green of their new foliage and, beneath perfect blue skies, it felt like warm, glorious summer. When the sun shines over here in God’s Own Country, there’s nowhere else quite like it on earth.

We’ve gone for long walks around our favourite lakes. South Tyrone and neighbouring Monaghan are full of charming little lakes, fed with run-off from the surrounding hills. We’ve added a new one to the collection this trip. A cousin of my father’s suggested we try Emy Lough, just outside of Emyvale in County Monaghan. And it didn’t disappoint.

It was a hot day, the day we went, and the trout were jumping, casting rings of ripples through the shallows. Anglers were waist-deep in the water, throwing their rods back and forth to cast flies to tempt them. Try as I might, however, I couldn’t manage to catch any of those jumping fish with my camera. Although Emi did catch this little chap wandering along the path all on his lonesome. The WonderDog was very keen to play with him, but we sent him on his way safely through the long grass by the lakeshore, and out of reach of the inquisitive snouts of the local pooches.

The Ulster American Folk Park ...

It's hard to think of a time when this folk park, devoted as it is to the theme of emigration, has been more relevant to the world we live in. As a child growing up in South Tyrone I visited it from time to time, and found it interesting for the story it told about generations of my countrymen who'd emigrated to seek better lives in the United States. It had a resonance with my own family: each of my four grandparents had at least one sibling who emigrated for economic reasons during the interwar years. Emigration and the parting with a loved one has been a constant feature of rural life in Ireland for much of modern history.

The Hughes family home

Over the generations they fled famine, persecution, war and civil unrest. In an age in which mechanisation had rendered much manual labour redundant many who couldn’t earn their living in the shipyards and the rope-works set their sights on the west and went in search of a better life.  Yet today these background themes that drove them away from home seem desperately contemporary.

Parkanaur Forest Park Parasol Beech Trees

The other day I dragged my mum, Emi and the WonderDog off in search of a couple of freaky beech trees. I had a vague recollection of having stumbled across them on my travels a lifetime ago in Parkanaur Forest Park, here in beautiful County Tyrone. I'd bored my family with stories about how these trees grew the wrong way up, and were a definite rarity in the world of all things botanical.

I'll admit that I got some of the story twisted. They've got roots at the end of their branches, I'd said. And they grow upside down, and back to front. 

So, okay, I'll level with you: they don't exactly grow back to front or upside down, but they are genuine 24-carat freaks of nature.

Parkanaur Forest Park Parasol Beech Trees