May the nourishment of the earth be yours,
May the clarity of light be yours,
May the fluency of the ocean be yours,
May the protection of the ancestors by yours”
Taken from Benedictus by John O’Donohue
I was waiting patiently early in the morning, the sky had already begun to have a glow but nothing yet had appeared on the horizon, until all of a sudden there was the first glimmer of a sun. The moment was magic, and I felt my heart fill with happiness, joy and gratitude, there was another day about to start, another day was breaking and in what a glorious way! What a powerful moment!
Another day has started in which to explore, and see the beauty around me, and be intrigued by all the little adventures that this day would bring.
The gray-green leaves of the Olive tree, a beautiful flower, the bright colours of the Luzzu boat.
The view out of the window of my lace making class in Victoria.
The humour seen in this proud dog trotting beside its owner in the funniest way.
And the funniest of all, me taking the wrong bus on my way to Victoria for my lace class and ending up doing a tour of almost the whole island before I got off the bus in Xaghra and taking another bus to town. I so enjoyed this little detour and could only laugh at my own mistake!
And when the day is done and a glorious sun is setting, painting beauty for long moments more, then, well then it’s time to happily be grateful again.
It is hard to believe that it’s nearly a week ago that we arrived in Gozo again. This time we are staying in a village, Ghajnsielem it is called, which lies on the East coast of Gozo and right at the little harbour of Mgarr which is where the ferries from Malta and Comino arrive, and where many boats of all sizes are anchored in the marina. Our flat is at the outskirts of Ghajnsielem and we overlook this harbour from a height which is very pleasant indeed. I am fascinated with the rock that our building is situated on, a beautiful rock, limestone. On my way to the village centre to fetch some groceries or go to the Post Office or such-like, I walk past lovely limestone buildings, old and new. The traditional, beautiful Maltese/Gozitan balconies can be seen in wood or stone along the way, a pleasure to the eye as always. Then you come to the neo-gothic parish church which rises up toward a blue sky, it’s eye catching! Surrounding the church are a variety of green and tree filled areas and an interesting Band club café where it’s nice to sit outside and observe village life while sipping a nice coffee or a cool drink. This morning I discovered where the library was. People all along the way were greeting me with either a bongu or a good morning! I’m starting to feel quite at home in this village.
Summer has come to an end. We are not ungrateful, we had a gently warm summer with enough moist to keep land and animal happy, so, looking at some other countries where people endured hardship because of the weather we have every reason to be happy. Today is dark, windy and very wet. It is time for us to go I think and that is what will happen in the week to come, all going well.
Reflecting on the summer months for a moment, for me personally it was wonderful because of all the activities with my daughter and grandchildren, we went for many walks and explored a variety of wonderful gardens around West Cork. At home also spending a peaceful time with Ian and enjoying many long conversations and discussions on everything under the sun, for some of these my sister Josefine was a part and a great input that was. There were the Art Exhibitions and the Art Festival, also the Historical Festival here in Skibbereen, and the Ellen Hutchins Festival in Glengarriff with an amazing walk in the grounds of her estate, all of which I enjoyed to the full. I’m sorry that I had to miss the Literary Festival in Bantry! I am also very happy because I was able to connect with all of my siblings (8left), this is something that is both important to me and very dear to my heart.
So I leave some images for everyone to enjoy. As I will be travelling in the next week or so I will again miss checking out all blog entries of my lovely friends and followers , but I hope to catch up soon. It has been a bit hectic around here. Meanwhile I would like to thank each and everyone for your encouraging support of my blog. Take care and be blessed.
Bantry Bay with the Caha mountains in the distance.
There was a lot of magic in the garden this summer, the sun on a dew drop early in the morning creating diamonds was just one such moments that creates a feeling of wonderment.
One of the amazingly beautiful paintings of Maurice Henderson, his works of flowers and his blues especially I love. We attended a celebration of his life recently after he passed during the summer.
And of course there are always lots of wonderful discoveries in and around the garden.
These are some of the images of my life in the past year, and I chose the colour blue because that seems to have figured a lot in my life the last twelve months. While choosing the photos out of my media library here at my WordPress.com I enjoyed wonderful memories of both beauty and joy, and would like to share this with all my friends.
A happy Monday morning wishes to all, hope that your week has started well. My week could not have started any better when early on I woke up to glorious sunshine. I happen to glance out of the window to the front garden and the buddleia bush and there I saw the most beautiful butterflies, five different species. They were fluttering among the honeybees of which there were over half a dozen. I stood watching them for a long time and only then thought about taking some photos and I’m glad that I did because in a way I feel that I have captured their beauty to share with so many others, and that makes me happy!
What a beautiful time of the year it is!
This is a peacock butterfly, it is found all over Ireland. It hibernates during the winter. It’s got to be the most beautiful of the butterflies in Ireland.
This was amazing, so many species on the one flower spike, there is the red admiral, these feed on over-ripe fruit and also in particular you see them on the buddleia bush. There is also a painted lady and a small tortoise butterfly. Not to forget the lovely honeybee, it’s so nice to see many of these around isn’t it, knowing that they are on the decline.
After I had stood there for a long time watching them, there came a neighbour’s cat and she could think of nothing better to do but to try and catch the butterflies, she managed to get hold of one branch of flowers and destroyed that, but the butterflies were able to escape and of course, much as I love cats, she got chased away very quickly by me.
It has been a while since I did serious work in the garden, seeing that I had not sowed nor planted anything this season, I had let the garden be for the bees and the insects, they of course took full advantage of the wilderness, and though there were not as many insects around this summer, I was still able to find some today. I had my little helper with me all day, Ruben, my grandson, came over and we both put on our wellingtons and out we went, we soon started to pull some of the overgrown cleavers away from other plants, also some of the ivy was removed. The two cold frames were totally overgrown some of the plants were pushing up the plastic and some had grown through it! Ruben, being almost 6 and a very enthusiastic worker was lifted into the frame and soon had pulled all the ‘weeds’ out, they then went on to the compost heap. We covered the earth in one of the cold frames with comfrey leaves, that will be good for the soil.
Ian came and cut the grass so we could use this for mulching as well. We spotted quite a few insects and I am happy to say that Ruben does not mind them at all, he is just very interested in the little creatures and seems to quite love them. Here is one beauty sitting on the flowers of a parsley plant, there were several others on the same plant.
Then there were all these weevils, and several different types of beetles, spiders, and caterpillars, lots of woodlouse as well. And the snails and slugs could not be counted, so many.
We have at this moment quite a few of these most beautifully scented white clover growing, I sowed them last year to improve the soil and they are giving a lovely display this summer. They will be good for the soil. The flowers of the parsley are quite beautiful too, they seem to attract many different insects.
And so the summer is moving along, there is more work to do, is lots to prepare before we leave for Gozo in autumn, though the garden will not be unattended while we are gone as there will be people in and out of the place all the time, still, I must make sure that when we return the garden will be ready for me to start more planting.
Well it is midsummer now, there has been a stillness in the air all day, now as the sun slowly disappears behind Mount Gabriel, the swifts are making merry above the houses here, probably the coolness of the evening has allowed the insects to dans around making easy prey for those happily swooping birds.
It is wind still.
How nice after the emotional and exciting last two days after voting results came out, Brexit is out….. will chaos follow, or not!
I was out in the garden today, looking at what is growing, and was pleasantly surprised with the flowers and the herbs, there is not much else growing as I did not plant any vegetables, but there are quite a few wild edible plants which I am using. I did not sow nor did I plant this year because this coming autumn we are going away again, but more about that another time. There are some berries growing and producing, strawberries, red currants, raspberries, are all doing really well. The herbs too have never grown better, makes me very happy.
Though I am leaving every single flower wild or not, I am disappointed with the lack of bees and other insects, despite there being a beehive just in next door’s garden! I still have to see my first butterfly too this summer, even though I spent days in the midst of nature last week. I hope that will change soon.
As it was an overcast but still very nice day, I decided to do some work in our own garden. I cleared one raised bed ready for growing some plants, but I am delighted with what is growing there already, there are plenty of herbs, such as rosemary, lemon balm, lavender, evening primrose, oca, oregano (two types), and of all things some Jerusalem artichokes have come up too. So I just took out some grass and some other stuff that was smothering those plants. Ian decided to come and work with me, so he cleared the path on his knees with a small little knife, no easy task to be sure. Now and then we took a rest, either for tea or chat, or to admire the creatures flying or crawling around. Meanwhile I took a few shots of them.
These are three wild plants that I am keeping my eye on very closely, number one is a huge thistle, it is almost in flower, I know that the seeds are what the gold finch feed on and that is why I want to keep it, to attract these birds and see how it goes. The second one is our comfrey plant, it’s flourishing and what I am watching is the amount of insects that are using it, most of what I see are the bumblebees and I would love to see some honey bees on the comfrey too, of course. The third plant is two years old, I grew it as a salad plant but it was so beautiful that I did not want to eat it, so I let it grow, and when we returned from Gozo it was so large and I recognised it as a plant you see a lot around here in the wild, a type of sorrel perhaps. These three are on my watch list.
And this is a view of our garden, we have had the pleasure to sit under the hawthorn tree all week for our meals, in the dappled sunlight with the garden scents all around us and the birds singing, what a perfect summer weather, aware that for people in other lands, not as lucky just then because of rains and floods.
Always nice to appreciate what we have in the moment.
agoyvaerts 