Restoring Mayberry

This is the time when the chilly rain and gray landscape of the Irish winter gives way to the cool beauty of summer, when the fields erup...

When we first moved into a house with a wood-burning fire, I needed to get and prepare the wood, but knew only what I had seen in movies....

Seeking a change of atmosphere, I walked a few kilometres to the village this afternoon – not a difficult walk ordinarily, but more so...

Ordinarily Ireland gets no more than a light dusting of snow once a winter, as the Atlantic currents keep us temperate. This past week, t...

The road to our house runs along a 300-year-old canal, originally dug to transport turf -- dried peat moss, our main fuel here -- on hor...

·          Today I had a chance to step out in the garden and get a few things ...

We had a great Christmas; The Girl got a new bow and arrows, to keep up with the passion that occupies most of her free time. She’s bee...

Whether you grew up in Texas or Tasmania, Manitoba or Macedonia, you were probably raised in a modernised Western culture like me, with e...

Things were very scarce, and money tight. When I was older I met this boy in Sallins, and he used to play in a band, and I often used to g...

This is part of my recent interview with the wonderful Patty Trabears, who lives in a nursing home near us -- she's 96 years old and s...