In 1999 Himself was working in Dublin and only came home to Cork at weekends and desolé being apart, we decided to buy a house in Dublin. I began a search, which, back then, was not online … Continue reading →

Annecy is the capital of the Haute Savoie, in the Department of the Rhone Alps. With the new motorway, it is less than an hour from Geneva. It is a small city – in Irish terms, about the size of … Continue reading →

It was like being in a scene from M*A*S*H. Lying on a gurney in the hall of the hospital, my arm aching in fresh plaster, I tried to relax, but helicopters kept coming close, hovering,whirleygig rumbling, taking off, their sound … Continue reading →

    This is not me, it is Roger Medearis’ Granny, but this is how I see myself, ageing amongst fruit and flowers, beside field and water in the sound of church bells.  Roger Medearis called his painting “Godly Susan” … Continue reading →

  Yesterday morning at nine o’clock I met Himself in the hall, somnambulant to breakfast in white piqué honeycomb cotton.  “You’ve heard of golf widows….well, I’m a brocante widower” he grumbled. “Bye” ses I, and I out the door to … Continue reading →

I’m posting this water jug as much for itself as to welcome the May. (“Bring flowers of the rarest, and blossoms the fairest from garden and woodland and hillside and glade”…) It cost €3 in Annecy, is hand made and … Continue reading →

  We have a second guest room under the eaves with a sloping ceiling in which is placed the room’s only window. If this window were bigger, or lower, or even on a wall, it would have the best view … Continue reading →

In France, we have Brocantes, which are antique markets, Marche aux Puces which are Flea Markets, Braderies (street fairs, often with local vendors selling goods on trestles outside their shops at a reduced price) and Vides Grenier (“Empty the Attic”) which … Continue reading →

“We’re going to move to France, to live the simple life….we’ll buy a little cottage in a sleepy little rural village in the sunshine…. We’ll do it up ourselves, live off the land or buy only in local markets….. it … Continue reading →

  Today is my daughter’s birthday. We do not know what life will bring, except that we get what we wish for (i.e. a daughter, snow) and what if I had known that three decades later, I would be spending … Continue reading →