Some signs of life

There's still no sign of my tomatoes germinating. I was getting worried until I dug out my gardening notebook and saw that I only sowed them a week ago not a fortnight as I'd thought. Whew...:-)

The repotted chili plants are doing fine. New growth on all but two and I had my doubts about them anyway. I did save some seeds from the chilis I used during the winter so I might sow some more. Don't know if these plants could be overwintered for a second time??

Bought a load of 99c perennials in Lidl yesterday. Planted them in the sister's rockery. Also bought a rosa rugosa but not sure where to put it. Needs sun and space.

Spring is here

What a joy it is to wake up in the morning to the sight of sunshine and the sound of birdsong! One of the biggest distractions I referred to in yesterdays post is the garden. I have various projects afoot, one of which is to start deciding what to sow in my vegetable plot this year. On one of my festival forays last summer I picked up a pack of seeds for a Siberian variety of tomatoes, Aurora. I haven't had much success with tomatoes so far but I have great hopes for this year. After all, if a plant can thrive in Siberia it can surely cope with an Irish summer. Anyway, I sowed the seeds yesterday and am now eagerly awaiting the first tiny green shoots.

Another experiment was to try to overwinter my chili plants. They were planted rather late from a pack of mixed seeds that came free with a magazine. They all produced some chilis, all shapes and sizes, but not enough. So, I decided to try to keep them alive over the winter so as to get off to a very early start this year. Unbelievably, it seems to have worked. I started off with thirteen plants, four died :-( so I have nine left. I repotted them yesterday into a soil/compost mix. A couple look dubious but the rest are showing signs of regrowth. One even has a flower bud!

The big project for this Spring is to create a Spring / Winter garden in my sister's front garden. It's a semi-woodland area and has some great trees there already including a copper beech and a couple of green beeches. There's also a cherry and I've just put in another cherry and a crab apple. There's loads of Ash (they literally grow like weeds around here, we're always having to remove them from flowerbeds) and there are far too many sycamore saplings even though I've already removed about 50 of them!

The photos give an idea of what the area looks like. It backs onto a heavily wooded portion of the neighbour's garden so the whole area should be a great wildlife area. It's also one of the places in the garden that gets really good winter sun which put the idea in my head to try to create a winter garden. I've started a hellebore patch and planted loads of tete-á-tete daffs and grape hyacinths in the Autumn. These are just coming into bloom now. There are already primroses (the wild variety) scattered around especially in the bank from the upper to the lower level.

The rockery bit bordering the drive was an afterthought when the sis built a garage last year. There's a bit of soil erosion going on there so, as it's south facing, we're going to fill it with mat forming alpines for a bit of summer colour and to stabilise the ground. It's been filled with lovely sandy soil unlike the claggy clay and builders rubble that comprises the rest. So far all that's in there are a few lonely looking aubretia plants and more daffs. I really want to keep the woodland bit full of native species, wood anemones, lords 'n ladies, bluebells, and the hellebores of course. I have a very clear picture in my mind of how I want it to look but it's going to be a while until it gets there. Something to look forward to.

Still can't find the flow

I'm doing a course at the moment. This course is vital to fulfill the terms of my current five year plan. It involves a career change from general, office based, administrator and dogsbody to freelance IT and English tutor. I've already got a TEFL qualification and am doing a certain amount of teaching. However, I've never expected to be able to make a living teaching English in Ireland. Hence this course which will qualify me to teach IT skills, FETAC, ECDL, etc. There is a lot of work involved and up until Christmas I was doing OK, getting assignments done, meeting deadlines, etc. Since the Christmas break I've been unable to concentrate. My work on assignments has slipped to the extent that I've handed nothing in for the last two months. I've spent most of this evening in front of the computer trying to put together an answer to a question which should have taken me approximately half an hour. It's still not finished and what I've written is disjointed and full of un-backed-up assumptions. I've also got a headache! The urgency I felt about embarking on this course of study has dissipated completely. I still badly want to do what I've planned but what felt well within my grasp six months ago now seems like a insurmountable mountain that I'm ill-equipped to climb. When will I get back my sense of purpose or at least the ability to knuckle down and do what's necessary despite the distractions all around me?

Of things past and present

I've recently signed up to Facebook and have been posting photographs there. This prompted me to dig out the journals I kept during my various travels. It's amazing the number of things you forget. Names, incidents that made an impression at the time, even places you passed through. I was in Cuba in 2006. Hence my fascination with all things Cuban. Incidently, there is an Irish based business where you can buy Cuban coffee and other things. Well worth a visit.

In spite of everything that's written about Cuba there is something about the place that gets under the skin and leaves an impression unlike any other place I've ever visited. In my journal, written in Mexico about a week after leaving Cuba, I've written I MISS CUBA like a physical ache in the stomach. It was the saddest place I've ever been but also the most unaffected in spite of the tour groups, the two-tier system, the jiniteros and jiniteras. The obvious poverty of the many was made worse (if it's possible) by the fact that the high level of education of the people means they know what they're missing out on.

But, the obvious inequities in the Cuban system are mirrored all over the non-first world. In Mexico which, on the surface, is a developed, first world country the ordinary people don't have the same freedom of movement that we take for granted. It's not a case of being prohibited to do something. Sometimes the whole system of visas and the invasion of privacy inherent in applying for a visa to travel is as much a deterrent as an outright ban. How privileged are we with our European passports?

I've been listening to far too much commentary on the radio

All you hear on the radio or television and in the newspapers these days is the on-going litany of the misdeeds of Irish bankers and politicians. To borrow from Kevin Myers in the Indo all any of them are doing is continuing the rich legacy of criminality and self-agrandisement that seems to be endemic in our political system. While America is riding a wave of hope and faith in the integrity of its president, Ireland continues to wallow in a mire of cynicism and despair. The one thing that everyone seems to agree on is that our government cannot be relied upon to do what's needed in these desperate times. It seems like everyone has an opinion and everyone can see a way out of this mess, that is everyone, bar the people who are actually in a position to make things happen. One thing is certain, the party that has its tentacles in every multi-million property deal, that refuses to recognise its culpability in the materialistic, provincial society that is Ireland is not the party that is qualified to lead us out of this recession. I doubt any party is qualified to do so. Perhaps emigration isn't such a bad option after all?

Of Birds and Other Animals

One of the up sides of the recent cold snap has been the frantic activity around the bird feeders suspended from the branches of an old apple tree outside my study window. I'm lucky enough to have a sparrow roost in the garden so they're around all the time, house sparrows and also dunnocks. Greenfinches, chaffinches, one solitary goldfinch looking colourful and exotic amongst its less exuberant cousins. A pair of collared doves have been regular visitors mopping up the spillage from the seed container. A hen pheasant occasionally puts in an appearance. It never ceases to amaze me how fast she can run when startled. There's the usual complement of great tits, blue tits and coal tits but the biggest thrill has been the visits of a small flock of six long tailed tits, described in one of my bird books as reminiscent of "an animated feather duster". They flit from branch to feeder ducking in under the beaks of the more aggressive finches, grabbing a titbit and making off to a higher perch to eat. They're a lovely dusky pink and black with tails twice the length of their bodies. Completely unmistakable.

The ground feeders are around too. A pair of robins and too many blackbirds to count. My excuse for wasting far too much time when I should be working with a pair of binoculars glued to my face watching the goings on is that one of the cats likes to lurk under a nearby bush waiting for her chance to pounce. I keep a little pile of stones on the window sill to threaten her with whenever she approaches. I'm always amazed by the statistics about how many birds are killed by domestic cats each year. It runs into millions. However, living in the countryside as we do the cats fulfill their function of keeping rodents at bay. Certain compromises have to be made on account of the cats though. Much to my regret I don't have any nest boxes around the garden. Although it's possible to protect the boxes the fledgings are just too vulnerable. Birds do nest here though and every year some inevitably fall foul of the cats.

Keeping them supplied with food during the snow and frost has taxed my ingenuity somewhat. Of course, there's a constant supply of peanuts and seeds but I like to try other things too. Mashed up peanuts are a great draw for just about everything and also attract starlings, the clowns of the bird world. There are lots of starlings around but they don't often visit the feeders. One of my greatest pleasures in my tiny English suburban garden was following the antics of the flock of starlings that visited every day. Starling fledglings learning how to take a bath stands out as the greatest natural comic moment. Fat cakes are great but I ran out of my supply of fat a while ago and keep forgetting to get lard to make some more. Leftover chips and batter go down very well. A wren has taken to using the garden pond as a hunting ground and seems to do very well indeed there.

Much to my delight yesterday I noticed the first clump of frogspawn in the pond. It was frozen solid this morning so I don't know if it will survive. Frogs don't do well in the pond as the goldfish tend to eat the tadpoles before they grow legs and escape. One of my projects for this year is to dig another pond for the frogs and anything else that wants to take up residence. My next door neighbour has newts in her pond so perhaps I can re-house a couple of those. That would be thrilling.

It's been a beautiful bright day here and the river was calm and peaceful when I went for a walk so here a photo taken from the bank.