Nelly's Garden

 I woke up worrying about the Antarctic Ice Shelf, then decided that my fretting about it would not help. Listened to the dawn chorus an...

We had a home visit today from a financial advisor, a local chap from a well-trusted and established organisation. It was just a matter of a...

 Usually, St Patrick's Day passes without note. It means very little to me nowadays. It used to - a day off school mid-Lent was always a...

  Holly came to live with us in December 2006. She was born on a farm near Slemish and the day that Zoe and I collected her, we were told th...

When Paddy died we went to his house. His apple tree, that strange forked apple tree that he loved so much was laden with fruit. Well, one h...

So, after the babies were tucked up in bed and we'd read the story of how Brer Rabbit tied Mr Lion to a tree Jazzer and I went downstair...

 Wasn't it always so? The News and all our thoughts are dominated by Putin's invasion of Ukraine and almost everyone has something t...

Snow lost its novelty for me a long time ago. Nowadays it seems like a big nuisance and I cannot even be bothered to take pictures anymore. ...

Last Friday Zoë and I went on a rail journey. I'd been worried as Storm Eunice was ongoing but somehow we managed to dodge it the entire...

Dudley and Eunice could be the title of an early unpublished novel by Hilary Mantel, or a pair of breeding bloodhounds owned by a Church of ...

Q. Why don't I blog more? A. Because I am currently obsessed with knitting. I took a notion for it before Christmas and on a day when ...

Dede and Zoe  I was going to blog about knitting, which has, once again, become an obsession. Dede at a party in Belfast   Then I recalled t...

In terms of people killed during the north of Ireland conflict, 1972 was the worst year for fatalities. There were 497 people killed over ha...

Only oldsters and media studies grads will 'get' the title of this post . Checking out the link on Wikipedia myself, I'm surpris...

Two Sundays ago I bumped into an old friend from primary school and she told me that her brother was gravely ill. Only six days later I hear...

There was an article in the Guardian recently by Rowan Moore , writing about his love for weird and wonderful objects that don't fit in ...

 Maybe because it's post-Christmas and the weather isn't right but I've been in a funk this past week. It was too mild over Chri...

Driving into Ballymena this morning I saw the driver of a beat-up old car throw litter from the window. I thought it disgraceful behaviour. ...

There was great sadness on Thursday. Maya, Zoe's older dog had been put to sleep the previous evening after it was discovered she had in...