But while searching for these, I spotted a curious object embedded in the grass.
I retrieved it, brought it home and the more I looked at it the less certain I became as to what it is.
It being so inconsistent with its surroundings and its blackened and charred appearance inspired the early thought that it might be a meteorite or some other object from space that had endured the rigours of entry, or re-entry, to our atmosphere.
Hence my email enquiry to Astronomy Ireland:
"I found this object at the edge of a field outside Thomastown, Co. Kilkenny last week.
I cannot make up my mind what it is!
Is it a stone, is it some organic matter or is it, possibly, a meteorite? Is the organic matter on its underside an integral part of it or embedded in it?
It is hard but brittle: I can chip fragments from it with my finger nail.
It measures 175mm in length x 90 mm in width x 60mm in height.
If it is stone, or the like, it is very light for its size at just 225 grams.
Can Astronomy Ireland throw any light on my object, I wonder, if only to confirm that it is not an object from space?
Many thanks,
Clive Nunn."
As I mentioned on Facebook, Astronomy Ireland replied that they did not do identifications and the scientist at Trinity College, to whom they referred me, did not respond.
It has sat on the shelf since but, now that I have dipped my toe into this world of mass social, media, I thought I might put it out there to see if anyone can throw some light on my object......
]]>Well, the bell rang again yesterday morning and there were Jack and Danny asking if they could paint here again, this time with Ballyduff in its autumn colours.
And they spent the day painting in glorious, sharp, early winter sunlight. And, once again, I was given the paintings they both made.
So now I am the very, very, proud owner of another Danny Brennan and a signed Jack O'Hare.
These will grace our own walls.
It was a delightful day and when they arrived I was in the throws of making a batch of granola so the kitchen was filled the delightful aromas of toasting oats, nuts, seeds and honey. And the artists noticed this and our, now five, hens scratching around in the sunfilled garden at the back of the house.
And so, in small recompense for their generosity, they each left with a small bag of granola and an egg laid during the day.
Finally, an extraordinary little quirk to the tale.
The two of them left Ballyduff having forgotten, not only their eggs and granola but also Danny's watercolour pad. So I fled to Google hoping that I could quickly find a contact number for one of them to call them back.
As it turned out, Jack, now ninety four, quickly realised that they had left things behind them and they returned to collect.
But...........during my moments on line I evidently, and inadvertently, opened Danny's Facebook page* so I awoke this morning to find the most charming post concerning their visit here.......
*And this may have unforeseen, and unexpected, consequences.......I have booked a Facebook tutorial with Sue for tonight..........
Jack O'Hare
Danny Brennan
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...........but last Wednesday, this was the scene as I walked back to the house having completed the task well before 9.00pm.
And I was out picking sloes late last evening - and when I see the Kilkenny colours in our gable window......I know it's autumn!
It was not until after I had written the title to this entry that I noted that my last effort - some sixteen months, or five seasons, ago - was entitled 'It's Spring at Ballyduff........'
I am unsure as to what it is that has prompted me to return here but, it seems to me, that it is somehow satisfactory to note the connection between the two entries........
I am equally unsure as to whether this will be a one-off or whether I will continue as before.
We shall see.........
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The confluence of the Arrigle and the Nore on Saturday 4 May
.....and the view of the Nore upstream from the confluence...............
............and downstream.
....and the darling (sycamore) buds of May.......
....and the Arrigle at Ballyduff Bridge through the budding sycamore....
...even the ash tree at the gate is struggling into leaf.
Sue's work on 'Granny's garden' continues and is just beginning to show colour.
And, astoundingly, 'horrid cat' decided to raise herself from her slumbers and venture forth - to the point of being, momentarily, friendly!
And on one of the last days of the bird feeder - it comes down in the morning - it received a visit from a robin: ever-present in the garden, I've never seen one at the feeder before.
And the girls have spent the past weeks trying to be as small birds - wondering how they too could get at the feeder...
...and in a valliant, but futile, attempt Prudence took to the air this morning!
And to celebrate Hannah's and Ousmane's, oh so brief, visit...
....Susie created one of her inimitable wild/garden flower posies for their bedroom.
That's it but it is - at last - spring......
]]>I opened a bottle last night and it was excellent but it was not until today that I took heed of its name and label.
The last time I saw Terre'Blanche written down it was beneath an image of Eugene Terre'Blanche - the revolting, South African white supremacist.
It will not spoil my enjoyment of the remaining bottles but it is not an association I would choose.....perhaps I will turn the label to the wall.........
My mother as a young woman.
She has been on my mind recently as I have been reading the memoir that my brother, Charles, encouraged her to write during her last years.
And I guess I have been reading it because, since Charles died just before Christmas last year, I have become acutely aware that I am now the sole survivor of the Nunn family of my own and previous generations and thus what I choose to remember and recount, except where there are written records, becomes the irrefutable account of the family's history.
And as an even more onerous responsibility, any description that I select to give as to the characters and actions (and their consequences) of my dead forebears, will be those upon which they will be judged by people who did not know them.
We are off to Canada at the end of May for a memorial celebration of Charles' life on
2 June, when I expect I will say a few words about him.
And I am determined that the memories upon which any such words will be based, should be fair and accurate - especially those relating to his childhood about which his Canadian family will have only his account - if he gave them one.
Which brings me back to my mother's memoir.
The copy I am reading is, I think, a draft. It came to me via my first cousin once removed, Alice Winter, and it has in its margins numerous notes in her mother's (Faith Winter, my first cousin) handwriting, which mainly contradict my mother's memories - especially regarding dates and events around the time of Charles' birth in 1938.
The fact is that, after his birth, my mother left Charles in England to rejoin our father, Christopher, in West Africa. I always understood that Charles was eighteen months old whereas Faith says he was just three months old. Faith was a child of eleven at the time so I am left wondering whose memory is accurate and I no longer have Charles to ask what he understood to have been the case.
To add to my difficulties, while Beatrice notes the dates on which she wrote the entries on the events of her life, she fails, in the main part, to record the dates - even the years - on or in which the events she is remembering and recounting occurred!
So, with fairness and accuracy as my aim, I find myself in a considerable bind.
This prompted action.
A tea-chest containing my mother's private correspondence has been languishing in the mill since she came to live with us in 1985. It has been a source of ever increasing anxiety and guilt over the intervening twenty-eight years as I feared that the contents of the tea chest would be slowly rotting in the damp mill.
But yesterday I sought it out to prove or dispel my fears.
I found it and what an amazing find it was!
Within it - and in perfectly readable condition - I found every letter that my mother had received from Christopher, as well as many of those sent by her to him, since they were courting in the mid nineteen-twenties
And within those letters I should surely find not only the missing dates but the very whys and wherefores of my parents lives.
It also held every letter that Charles and I sent to her (or them when they were abroad together) up to the time she came to live here.
I reckon they must run to a thousand at least and it took me over an hour just to excavate them from the chest and it will take me weeks to sort them and months, if not years, to read through them all!
I have no doubt but that as I get into this task, the contents of their correspondence will provide matters that are worthy of mention here.
But just glancing at the stamps, addresses and post marks as I removed the envelopes from the chest provided an extraordinary glimpse of the lives they led.
There were letters to or from:
The Gambia
Gold coast
Sierra Leone
Uganda
Trieste
Malta
Jamaica
American Virgin Islands
Fiji
USA
Switzerland
Italy
Pakistan
Ecuador
Colombia
Brazil
Peru
Chile
Libya
Kuwait
Not to mention
The UK, Canada and Ireland!
Amongst the many delights of the visit was a new addition to the Presbytere breakfast table - Granola - made by our hosts, Martin and Sile Dwyer.
And as another delight, Martin gave me some cooking lessons and demonstrations, including confit de canard, how to make a souffle, how to make and bake bread and pastry and the granola.
Since we returned I have so far only made the granola - the third batch of which I made this morning.
I made the first two batches exactly according to the master's instruction but I gave a slight tweak to this batch - but I won't admit here to what that tweak was until we have given it the taste test!
]]>And I loved it.
As something entirely new to me, I did all I was told to do - with it and for it - by the rule book.
I watered it; I fed it; I trimmed it; I sprayed it and I gave it outdoor times - all as instructed.
I think our relationship (that's the bonsai's and mine, not Hannah's and mine) lasted for a good many years before some catastrophic event struck it while it was on a sojourn outdoors.....I really don't remember but Sue tells me that it was a 'third party of small years' that struck it a fatal blow.
Anyway, it died......
........but, in its death, I perceived a new beauty.
So I dried it out and for the last number of years it has held its position among other items that we consider worthy of display.
And then, this Christmas, Hannah gave me another bonsai.
And I embarked on the same journey - once again following the rule book.
All was going well and my hardest task was trying to decide where I would place it to enjoy it most.....
.......and the huge widow cill above our bed became the chosen spot where by day it formed a shapely silhouette against the light and by night its conformation and colour stood out against the neutral blinds.
And so it was as we left for France in early March.
But knowing - from the rule book - that for it to dry out was its worst threat, I watered it as an immediate priority on our return when I tried not to notice some leaf-fall.
Over the ensuing days, it shed its leaves until it had the very same appearance as its dead fore-bare!
And worse, this moment coincided with a visit home by Hannah.
Little was said but it must surely have been noted that I should never again be entrusted with the care of a bonsai!
But, but, but.... shortly thereafter it started to show the very signs of spring and new growth that I have mentioned are so strikingly missing outdoors....
.....and wherever you put it, it looks just wonderful!
Today it got a good feed and was re-positioned in the sunniest window.....
]]>It is just outside the kitchen window - not entirely to Sue's delight, it has to be said, (because it is she who keeps the windows clean) as the birds who attend create an extraordinary mess for such tiny creatures.
In the snaps that follow you may spot:
Great tits
Blue tits
A coal tit
Greenfinches
Goldfinches
and a Blackcap
I guess this is the best shot: 2 Golfinches, a great tit, a greenfinch and the blackcap all feeding at the same moment and all reasonably in focus.
]]>So I thought I would prove my point here by showing you this shot, taken yesterday, 15 April with one of the same tree taken in a previous, normal, year.
And how wrong I am / we are.
This shot was taken on 17 April 2011.
Not a leaf on it then as now!
And, in preparation, I hunted down our copy of Yann Martel's book which I knew I had started but not finished.
And what did I find?
Apart from the reminder of the story that I sought, I discovered that our copy had been given to me by my brother and that it contained a dedication in his own hand.
R's college had invited this author to be their special guest well before he got the Booker Prize. And he is still coming, which is very good!
With much love from Charles.
September 2003.
And suddenly - following on from Mr. Klinkenborg's observations about the loss of the sound of a person's voice - I realised that, in this digital age, we are fast loosing the recognition of handwriting as another potent association with those we love and lose.
In fact, now I come to think about it, it may be one of the most powerful.
I guess we will all have poured over many a photograph album struggling to identify loved ones at stages of their lives during which we were not, ourselves, present.
But, had I found this copy of Life of Pi in a second hand bookshop, instead of on my own shelves, I would have recognised my brother's handwriting without hesitation.
Just another thought...
And, by the by, we loved the film...but, if you are anyway like us, be sure to take a handkerchief with you.............
Hereabouts, in my view, we are fed a very limited diet of information on the USA.
Given that these days I receive most of my information via radio, I find that the rounded and opinionated packages delivered by Richard Downes illuminate little, as I do the answers of some poor devil who has agreed to stay up half the night to field questions from Cathal Mac Ciolle and Aine Lawlor, as they are most often academics who deliver opinions that are even more predictable than those of Downes.
Pat Kenny can manage an interview that takes a direction of its own but too often it is with the - 'I'll just tell you how I advised the President' - Niall O'Dowd or, for some reason, a favoured taxi driver.
And then there's the prefectorial Mary Wilson, who knows it all already and, when she can take time off from correcting her minions, Fergal Keane and Philip Boucher-Hayes, is distant and dismissive of any unfortunate correspondent delivered to her.
Wow, forgive that rant, especially since its delivery was not my purpose here.
Anyway, anyway, yesterday was one of those days when I bought myself an IHT and it did not disappoint.
Having found out what they think about their handling of their 'financial cliff' problem and our handling of our Euro problems I turned to a column that appears from time to time on the opinions pages entitled 'Meanwhile'.
This column may be about anything and by anybody but is often a wry observation, a sideways glance or an illumination of a thought, preference or deed that surprises - often by its obviousness.
And yesterday was one such day when Verlyn Klinkenborg, who is a member of the New York Times editorial board, tells the story of how, having endured twenty years of a vocal chord problem that had distorted his speech, he had had it restored to its norm by successful surgery.
He pointed out that he had to take this 'normality' of his voice on trust because it was entirely the opinion of others, there being no substantial recording of his speech before its deterioration.
He went on to point out that while we accumulate copious photographs of the progress of our lives, unless it is an individual's profession, there is unlikely to be any accessible recording of a person's voice.
He muses-on that this has always been the case since the inventions of photography and sound recording and that, for instance, he regretted that he had no recording of his mother's voice, she who had died twenty years ago but noted that he had no recording of his father's voice either, he who had died just four years ago.
It's simply not what we do.
He noted that the ubiquitous smart phone is equally, instantly capable of making sound recordings as it is of snapping pictures but, largely, we don't do it.
He goes on, and it is a beautifully rounded and crafted piece, but it is its ending that particularly caught my attention:
And if I really could go back to an earlier self, here's what I'd say: while capturing sound is now so easy, make sure you record the voices you will want to hear again. The sound alone will say everything someday.
Now, as you know, my brother died recently and I realised, at once, that I have no record of his distinctive voice.
And then, and this I think emphasises Mr. Klinkenborg's point almost perfectly, I phoned Canada last week to speak with my brother's wife.
There was nobody home.
The voice on the answer-phone message was my brother's.
I was quite taken aback.
The route we take brings us to a cross-roads on the Mullinavat to New Ross road at Smithstown, known by all around here as 'The Three Friars'
It is named thus because, high on a field at this junction there are three standing stones (erected in pre-historic times).....
.......that have been high-jacked as a memorial to three friars who were, reportedly, killed at this spot by Cromwell's forces in 1651.
We have a particular affection for this scene and spot as we have on our wall a watercolour of The Three Friars painted by our friend and neighbour Ramie Leahy.
But on one of these trips, one of us noticed that the three friars had become two.
And on another journey Naoise and I stopped to inspect the scene more closely and we discovered that one friar had fallen - again!
A cursory glance at Google's offerings provided little more information than I have revealed above, only that, adjacent to the Three Friars, there is a 'Holy Well'.......
....... but plainly this 'holy well' is actually a lime kiln!
The Three Friars were minded by someone by the name of Forristal and we wonder whether this minding has ceased - though I doubt that that the falling of a pre-historic, standing stone is an occurrence that could have been prevented - however careful the minding.
In fact, when I come to think about it, the collapse of a pre-historic edifice is a bit of a phenomenon in itself, is it not?
Sue plans to raise the matter on air when she returns to work to see if she can elicit any further information.
]]>Just three hours before this moment in time, my niece, Natasha, called from Canada to tell me that my brother, Charles, had died some half an hour earlier.
Thus he died at about 6.45pm on Saturday, 15 December Edmonton, Alberta time.
Regular readers may be surprised that I should break my rule of leaving these pages free from personal matters and details.
But my family, friends and those who know me well, will also know that, aside from my own Ballyduff family, he was the person most important to me and has been for all of my concious life.
And I told him this, sitting in his truck overlooking a vast refuse tip, on the last day of our visit to Canada in June 2010 when we bade one another farewell.
His death is, unquestionably, a release for him, and must be so for his family, for he had been ill and in decline for a long, long time: as you can measure from our farewell being now two and a half years ago.
I tell you, without hesitation or doubt, of his importance to me, but it is an illumination of the fractured family from which we came when I tell you also that, if I added together all of the time that we spent in one another's company in the sixty-five years since we returned from Jamaica, where I was born, I doubt if it would add up to one full year.
And so, with particular encouragement from Sue, I have decided that his death should, after all, be marked here.
I figure that this will be done, from time to time, with the odd anecdote or memory, including why it was that we spent so little time in one another's company but became of such importance to each other.
But, for today, I will merely observe that for Charles, his life ended on Saturday evening, 15 December whereas, for me, it ended in the very early morning of Sunday, 16 December and that perfectly exposes the difficulties, in terms of immediate communication, that this difference in place and time, between New Sarepta and Ballyduff, imposed on all of us who loved him, on both sides of the Atlantic, as his life drew to its end.
There are, of course, many and more varied pictures of Charles but these are the last images of him in my memory as they were taken in June 2010 when Sue and I made the most memorable, and happy, visit to Canada even though it was when we also said goodbye to one another.
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