When I get up I'm inclined, almost as a reflex action, to throw open the front door to inspect the new day.......

...recently I have found a companion for this, erstwhile, private ritual.....

...and on this particular morning, last week, we agreed that it looked good.

There was a tap on the door last week and it was Pat Doyle, a farmer from Glenpipe just up the road from us here in Ballyduff.

He explained to me that his father, also Pat Doyle, had delivered grain to the mill when he was a young man and that he would love to come and have a look around.

Remembering my churlish behaviour when 'The Painters' called here on a similar mission, (Normal Service to Resume.............1 July 2010) I immediately said that I would be delighted and we agreed that the visit should take place yesterday, Tuesday morning.

I even left a note on the kitchen table to ensure that I would not forget and commit an even graver faux pas.

And, on cue, they arrived. Young Pat Doyle's brother, Larry, came along too as did young Pat's son, a boy of twelve or thirteen, whose name I'm afraid has already slipped my mind.

And they all of them seemed to love looking and poking around and it proved to be a truly pleasant hour.

Young Pat's son, Young Pat, Larry and Pat senior.

Pat senior told me, very quietly, that it is nearly eighty years ago that he delivered grain to the mill.
He surely carries his years lightly.

I think I have promised here that I would not bore you with cat stories or cat pictures.

However, I am going to break my rule.

I looked out from the kitchen door yesterday morning...............

..........and saw Ting Ting playing high in the hazel bush on the lawn.

And then I got these snaps which I have decided are worth sharing - even with non cat lovers.

And the today happens to be the day on which he is being - how should I put it - 'unmanned' and he is on my mind.

So I'm happy that these pictures should mark the day and illustrate his virile agility in case, from here on in, he becomes a lethargic slob!

In October last year I received an email from Diana Larsen of the McMullen Museum of Art, Boston College.

Its first line read.........
I was interested to discover you online and I would love to talk with you about your experiences with Irish vernacular furniture.

She went on to explain to me that she was the Exhibitions and Collections Manager / Designer at the museum and was researching for an essay that she was to write for the catalogue for an exhibition that the museum was to mount between February and July this year - Rural Ireland - The Inside Story

And a conversation began - mostly on line - questions were asked and answered, information was exchanged and pictures were delivered.

And the last line of her final communication read.....
................I will be sure to send you a copy of my article once I have completed it.

And then silence.
A silence that was both reasonable and anticipated while, I assumed, Diana ordered her thoughts and wrote her piece.

But this silence prevailed beyond the date that I understood the exhibition was due to open and, as I had delivered information and, in particular, photographs, that are of unrivalled (maybe unrivallable) archival importance (to me anyway), I began to wonder, whenever it crossed my mind, if I had made a mistake.

And, on a number of occasions, I said to myself that I would send Diana a querulous prompt - but I never did.

And then, in late February, this arrived.

And, of course, I rushed to Diana's article to check if and, if so, how had she represented my contributions to her research.

I could not have been happier!
The photographs that I so value illuminated her text, she quoted me extensively and accurately and she acknowledged me in the notes, delightfully..............

Clive Nunn, former dealer, furniture maker and one of the founders of the Irish Country Furniture Society shared his experiences with me in interviews and provided photographs from his personal photo archive of vernacular Irish furniture.
He lectures on the subject and has an engaging website: www. clivenunn.com
(Clive Nunn, email interview by Diana Larson, Oct. 10, 2011)

These are the photographs.

Why do I attach such importance to them?

For a number of reasons.

Not least because they are a potent reminder of my life back in the late 1970's and early 1980's when I was dealing in vernacular Irish furniture.

Also, because I suspect that there will be few similar photographs in existence.
We were not such a snap-happy people back in those years: taking pictures was a far more deliberate activity, requireing a hefty camera and some knowledge as to how to use it successfully, film and two trips to the chemist to deliver the film and collect the prints.

So I suspect that there will be few other pictures taken of roadside deals with travellers and of the volumes of furniture that was being discarded at the time.

Finally, I harbour intentions of writing about vernacular Irish furniture, with particular reference to it dispersal and loss, myself and these pictures would illuminate my story with eloquence.

And, for the record, the traveller (I would have called him a tinker at the time and he would not have been insulted) in the picture is of Henry Connors of Pallas, Clonroche, Co. Wexford.
Henry is still hail and hearty - or as hail and hearty as he ever was - and I still see him and members of his (very extensive) family from time to time.

The picture was taken early one Sunday morning in 1982 by Dessie Conlan, a design student from Belfast who was researching for his thesis on Irish furniture at the time.
Sadly, Dessie died very soon after completing his doctorate but I have a copy of his finished work - another very rare document I would hazard.

I just love the picture - note the little girl on the pony in the background.

As I said, way back at the end of December last year, it was then my intention to tell you about - even invite you to - the launch of my new, furniture-focused website - http://www.clivenunnfurniture.com/

As it transpired, I was thwarted by Fat Cow.

Now Fat Cow sounds more like the description of my feelings towards, rather than the name of, the web host of this site. But, apparently, (the) Fat Cow failed on various counts and it took the wiles of Caitriona to unravel the problems and get me up and running again.

But, as I say, these problems struck just at the time that the furniture site went live and of its launch, so it is now a question of telling you about about it retrospectively.

Most importantly, I now have a proper furniture site and, as you can see above, there are simple, user-friendly links from here to the furniture site and from it back to here.

I am very pleased with it and, as always, it was Terry Bannon who undertook the job for me.
It was a huge amount of work for Terry, especially as much of the photographic record of my back work is anything but high resolution - but there is no one better than Terry to make a silk purse out of a sow's ear!
I think you will agree that he did a fantastic job and I am not only delighted with the site but also, once again, enormously grateful to him.

And so we then planned its launch.

Peter MacCann agreed that I could use the Cellar bar in the Merrion Hotel - which is of course my own work - for the event.
An invitation list was prepared with Sinead Ryan of Presence Communications providing me with the definitive list of lifestile and interiors editors while I scoured my own contacts book for past customers, clients and architects with whom I had worked over the years and, of course, family and friends were invited too.

This is the invitation that went out and you would have received, but for Fat Cow.

Sinead's help came with a condition: I was to do what I was told!
I promised I would.
So, on the night she told me what to do, when to do it and how it should be done.
I await her report card as to whether I kept my promise.

Anyway,there was an excellent turnout; the Cellar Bar delivered copious quantities of the best and most varied finger food and Alison looked after us with just that perfect blend of unobtrusive attention that one associates with the Merrion Hotel.

And Malachy Geelan took pictures.................

...............I said a few words (It's a pity that I evidently looked deranged as I did so) and that is Terry Bannon - holding the glass - behind me.................

............and Dave Crowley of Cantrell Crowley, Architects with whom I have worked on many projects over the past twenty years and more, including the Cellar Bar, said some very kind things about me.............

...................as did Peter MacCann, the General Manager of The Merrion, who has been my best customer - in every sense - since the Hotel opened more than fifteen years ago.

Daughter Alice with Dave Crowley..............It transpired that they live within a few hundred yards of each other and have frequently passed one another on walks and runs!

Son, Naoise, with Pat Moylan, chairperson of the Arts Council

Sue with Peter MacCann

Sue with Dave Prickett, long, long term friend and competitor!

.....with Maria Kiernan and Paul Kearney of Kearney & Kiernan Architects, with whom I have worked on projects in London and Dublin.

.............and minister Phil Hogan dropped by too (I note I still looked demented!)........

................and here with daughter, Alice.

It was a great evening and I am very grateful to everybody shown or mentioned here and to all those who attended or sent messages.

Tangible results?

On Friday I will be following up on an enquiry, that is a direct result of a mention in the Irish Times magazine, and I am back in discussion with two existing clients for new works.
And the contacts made, especially with the interiors editors, will be a resource for the for the future.

During the summer of 1985 we converted the road-end cottage, which is now an integral part of our home (in fact our bedroom) into a 'granny-flat' for my mother.

There is a back-story to this.

My mother had decided that she would come to live with us on foot of a long proffered promise and, whilst we owned the road-end cottage it had been agreed with John Gaffney, from whom we bought the property that, as a condition of the transaction, he could have the use of it for his lifetime.

As with most matters concerning people and property, it was a complex story but not one I will tell now - maybe another time.

But, in a nutshell, in 1985, and for the one and the same reason - age - John Gaffney no longer had need of it whilst my mother did.

So, as I say, the summer was spent in its conversion and preparation and, in the nature of such undertakings, we were up against time as the deadline of my mother's arrival approached.
It wasn't quite ready and for a few days she stayed as a guest of Barbie Thomas, Brede's mother-in-law, in Ballyduff House years and years before Brede started her now legendary bed and breakfast business there.

And, if we were not quite ready with the 'granny-flat', we were, certainly, in a state of complete chaos in our own quarters, the more so because our kitchen had had to be substantially compromised to create the said 'granny-flat'.

If the truth be told we no longer had a kitchen and, since a part of the deal was that mother would be fed by us as well, it left a considerable gap in the extended family's requirements.

So, just days prior to her arrival, I put my eye on two old school-lockers in the mill (residues of the pine-stripping days), painted them blue and brought them to the house. Being too low for kitchen use, their height was increased by an unfinished length of 3" x 2" which was also hurriedly painted blue.
A gas hob was set into a length of, similarly 'found-on', Kilkenny limestone which was plonked upon the blue cupboards.

At least we could now cook!

Our kitchen as we have known it over recent years...........

It was at around this time that I was starting to make furniture (and kitchens) and, whilst I never kept a count, it is likely that in the intervening twenty seven years I have built between fifty and one hundred of them.
But not ours!
I have no doubt but that back in 1985 I will have promised a proper, new kitchen within months but, although it would be untrue to say that there have not been some improvements over the years, substantially, our new kitchen never arrived!

In truth we have had an agreed plan - even drawings - for the past few years but 'something' constantly intervened to cause a postponement of a start date - not least this bloody recession.
But recently we agreed that the time had come and that we would do it, or rather that I should get on with it.
Now, Sue seldom does 'ultimatums' but it was put to me that the timetable I was proposing still did not satisfy!
So I did a quick recalibration and, to ensure that there would be no further slippage, I removed key elements of the old, ad hoc kitchen to enable me to start relocating electrical sockets etc., etc...

So it is underway!
It should be said though, that ad hoc, bockety and scruffy as it is / was, we, and many others, loved the old kitchen - probably for those very reasons: that it was ad hoc, bockety and scruffy!

And it surely puts it up to me to do a fine job now.

I hope you will see steady progress here and, if you don't, you can rest assured that this will not be a happy home!.................

From what I read and hear I'm not alone in that, these days, I seldom buy a newspaper.
It's not that I now read them on-line - I don't and, given my spendthrift propensities, I don't think my motive is to save money.
But it seems I now need a reason to buy one: like a visit to the dentist (and I've made a lot of those this past year or two!) when a protracted waiting period may be anticipated.

Is it because they now barely live up to their name - newspapers for they now are seldom the vehicle for news?
Perhaps it is because they have become, instead, purveyors of opinion, endless opinion and, on account of the times we are living through here in Ireland, these opinions, although most of them contradictory, are almost universally gloomy?

Notionally, I still really like newspapers and they have been a part of my life since I can remember, which is long before I became a reader of them myself.
On the rare occasions when my father was at home during one of my holidays from boarding schools, I have an abiding image of him as a truncated man where the upper potion of his body was replaced by 'The Times of London' which, in those days, had no pictures - nor even news stories - on its front page but was covered in the minute print of its 'personal' columns.
And, if one took the risk of interrupting his reading, the paper would be lowered, making a very particular noise as it crumpled onto his lap, to reveal a countenance - seeking to suppress signs of annoyance - of which the principal feature was of enormous, black-rimmed glasses which were de rigueur for serious men of the time.
And my mother's gardening and cookery books were filled with cuttings from 'The Times' who's correspondents she held in a particularly high regard - 'if it's in The Times, it must be true / good / reliable' etc., etc..............

Mr. Murdoch has since done a fine job of destroying this reputation!

But these reminiscences were not my purpose here.
What prompted these thoughts is this................

Bearing in mind my trade, we tend to light our fire with paper and off-cuts from the workshop, rather than with malodourous fire-lighters.
And these items are kept in a box beside the said fire.

And herein lies the link, or links, in my rambling thoughts.

If you can imagin it, back when I was an habitual paper buyer, the box was always full to overflowing with the most recent purchases and, thus, it was they that were first to hand to light the fire each evening.

But now that this habit has been broken, I find myself travelling back in time!

For instance, the paper that will light this evening's fire is a Sunday Tribune (now defunct - a casualty of the recession) of 19 October 2003.
I'm sure I'm not alone in being easily diverted, from whatever task I have in progress, by old newspapers and I'm sure I will find myself reading this old journal this evening until my knees ache as I am hunkered-down in front of the fire that I had set out to light.
Especially so when I note that it was none less than Michael O'Leary who was calling the then mighty Bertie, spineless, and that the picture to the right is of Clare Daly being greeted by her daughter on her release from prison - (she had been incarcerated for being a 'bin protester) - and, today, she is a Socialist Party TD and the 'bin issues' still make headlines week after week, more than eight years later!

And as I flick the pages.......(yes, I have run ahead of myself and had a peek before fire-lighting time)..........how's this for a blast from the past?

.................................................................

And here are two pages from the Sunday Independent of 20 January 2008 that caught my eye.

They caused me to ponder that eight months before this date, when we, the electorate, were fully aware of Ahern's dodgy financial dealings, he won a general election and a third term as Taoiseach and less than four months after this date he was forced out of office.

And three years after Kenny was regularly generating headlines of this nature, he won the largest Dail majority in the history of the state and may well be credited as the politician who destroyed Fianna Fail, the party that had kept Fine Gael out of power for all but a handful of years since the formation of the state.

But it wouldn't be true.

It was Bertie Ahern who did the job of consigning his party to the very dustbins (of history) over which Clare Daly and her party still fight.

Some things change absolutely while others never change...............it seems.

My mother used to say, quite often, 'I don't know how I came by it but.....' and and she would then go on to explain the qualities of the object, or figure of speech or, even, a thought that caused her to retain its use.

I was cooking the other evening and selected from the cupboard a couple of items that I, definitely, 'came by' from my mother.
And I cherish both of them: not, I think, so much because 'I came by them from my mother' but because they are remarkable artefacts.
No, why do I say that? Of course it pleases me that they came from her and to recall that she had such a clear vision for really good objects and also that it was she who was my earliest and most powerful influence in the seeking of superior objects - and indeed of figures of speech and thoughts.

I think I have mentioned already that I also inherited all her aluminium saucepans, most of which must now be well over fifty years old and, despite being somewhat battered and bruised with the odd loose handle, they remain superior to any other pot or pan in the cupboard except, possibly, for a non-stick, cast-iron frying pan - from Ikea, believe it or not.

But the objects I selected from the cupboard the other evening were two of her racks.

The first is the rack upon which she always roasted meat.
In my view, and I assume it was hers too, the fact that it is small in length and width but relatively tall in the leg, affords it qualities that are not provided by the customary racks supplied with the roasting pans of present day cookers.
It allows for all surfaces of the joint, or bird, to be roasted (and browned) above the cooking juices, which, since the bars of the rack are set well apart, fall freely into the pan in readiness for making the gravy.

And the second is her cake-cooling rack.

I must confess that neither of us are bakers so it is seldom used for cooling cakes but it is used, from time to time, to cool other items that are best cooled with air beneath them.

It is just such a beautifully made object and I get pleasure from it every time I set eyes on it and handle it.

This years rates demand arrived recently.

It starts well enough with 'Dear Customer...' but that did cause me to ponder what product or service does my local authority actually sell or provide to me?
In other words, in what capacity am I their customer?

I pay a private company to remove my waste.
I am on the brink of being taxed for my septic tank.
I supply my own water.
The road that passes my house can barely be described as such.

But I'm sure that in this day and age those are unreasonable expectations..........it is obviously rediculous that, as a customer, one should expect any return for one's payments....silly me!

Flattering, I suppose, that the payment request should come from the top 'Head of Finance' but I fear the manners slipped a bit as his signature came without any offer of either 'faithfulness' or 'sincerity'.
But we will let that pass too.

However, as someone who also seeks to sell products and services to my customers, I was astounded by the implied threat at the epistle's end.

'We Subscribe to STUBBSGAZETTE Debt Recovery Services'

I suppose it could be argued that this implies some tangeble return on my money - they pay a debt recovery service!

I'll give it further thought, but I somehow doubt that I would enhance my chances of gaining their business if I included a threat, however veiled, at the very inception of forming a relatonship with a 'customer'.

We were back in the Blackstairs, again, towards the end of February, this time with friends Miriam and Heinz and sister-in-law, Siobhan.

I'll not go into detail as I would be repeating myself but it was back to 'the beeches' on a perfect, early spring day.

The shadows were lengthening by the time we finished.....

.......but along the way I spotted this.

In our ignorance, we couldn't decide if it was a fungus or a lichen but, certainly, none of us had seen its likes before and we agreed that its astonishingly bright colour was incongruous, not only with the time of year, but also Ireland's prevailing damp and cool climate.

My guess is that there is a man in Skerries who can identify and explain........