It may be an arbitrary date, dividing one year from another, but the New Year is always a good time to remember and reflect. Despite this supposedly being a quiet time of life this last year has been very busy and a bit of a rollercoaster. Rounding up 2024 in 1,000 words is a rather daunting task but here goes anyway. Like every year there has been good and bad, old and new. We have made some new friends and got to know some others a lot better. As you may know from previous episodes, some of these friends helped to make our 40th anniversary a memorable occasion.
Although we remain stoically antisocial we have got out a bit more, beginning with the trip to Cork in February. I had a visit to Dublin in the early summer where I met up with my old friend Jon “Ginge” Moore for the first time in almost 30 years and had a chance to visit the wonderful EPIC museum. I also had a stall at the local farm, art and agricultural show where I met some new readers and a number of hopeful writers.
We’ve had some visitors too, repeat visits so we must be doing something right. Helen and Adrian and Noel stayed in the spring and summer and my niece Polly braved the storms just before Christmas. Christmas itself was a quiet time, most welcome as we settled down in our “snug” and just pleased ourselves. We had a tree though I didn’t get the outside lights done, due to a mixture of high winds in indolence. I can’t resist modeling my new coat for you all. Thank you Jacqui!
A lot of our efforts have gone into establishing and maintaining the wood and new orchard. We are hugely indebted to Fergus, Donal and Andy for all their help here. Bill built a large and very fine lean-to just inside the wood and now collecting and drying our logs is many times easier. No more fighting with a huge pile of chopped wood and hauling tarpaulins around. Quality of Life product for sure.
All of these projects are ongoing and will take our time and attention this next year. We hope to clear more of the wood, removing the remaining dead ash saplings. Hopefully we can add a few more trees to our new mini arboretum and up in the orchard we have pla. ns for a few more fruit trees. We also hope to actually harvest some of the raspberries ourselves this year. Last year the birds stripped the lot in one day. I’ve been clearing out and have a pile of old CDs, mainly unusable computer disks. We’re making a frame to go over the raspberries to hang them out as bird scarers. We won’t net the bushes as birds can get trapped and die in the nets.
The wildlife continues to both share and invade our house. We have an on-going battle with the acrobatic rat that will strip our bird food from the main feeder. He still tries to get to the hanging containers though I think has failed so far. In the spring we woke to find baby bats stuck in our shower – how the hell they got in we don’t know. We rescued them in a soft cloth and put them safely under cover until dusk when they flew away. The mice crept in to the boiler cupboard last winter and it took a month of traps and the occasional release to get them out. Well, they are back again. At least Mabel the feral/farm cat gets the occasional tasty (and poison free) snack.
Our biggest invasion was a wasp nest in the end roof. This appeared in early autumn and so we waited for them to die off, to no avail. In the end it took three visits from Rentokill to get them out and I still find the occasional large but very drowsy wasp in the kitchen. The hole they made in the wall will need to be filled before spring, as will another inviting gap in the top gable.
At the end of 2023 I had two falls, one from a ladder and the second on some ice. This caused problems with both my shoulders and I had some helpful physio for the worst one. Sadly the other has now deteriorated so I’m looking at more treatment in the new year. Apart from this we’ve been fairly healthy if a bit more tired than usual. This is despite the interventions of the utterly useless consultants who did little but make Jacqui much worse for a lot of the year. They don’t want to see us and we certainly don’t want to see them so we are working on restoring her health and mobility ourselves. It seems to be working, slowly but we will get there. I guess age is finally catching up with us. Why is that always a surprise?
Ireland remains increasingly wet and once more the summer was something of a disappointment. When the weather is fine however it can be stunningly beautiful. It rarely snows here though it is snowing as I write, just to prove me wrong. The sky two days ago was a bright, hard blue with an unnusual number of vapour trails. Then a frost struck yesterday and – hey, presto, snow today.
It’s only the third time we’ve had snow in the four years we’ve been here and it causes great excitement amongst local children. Despite this it seems a rather benevolent type of snow as opposed to the UK snow we had in the north east. That came sideways up the street driven by the north wind and it only stopped when it hit a wall.
It’s getting chilly in my room now so I will stop and creep down into the warmth of the snug. There was a lot more going on but I’m up to my 1,000 words so will end my attempt at rounding up here. If you want to know more or need a quick catch-up you can click on the links to the right of the main web page and read back as far as our move!
Wishing you all a very good New Year, thank you for reading and know I appreciate all the comments and support very much.
Jennie.