-
favourite tea mugs
Last week I wrote a blog post about my favourite coffee mugs, so today I present the exciting sequel: tea mugs, this time it’s herbal! Over a decade ago I was a black tea and coffee drinker. I’d alternate during the day, but my black tea habit was the stronger. In Ireland I often experienced the ‘neverending cup of tea syndrome’ when I visited friends’ houses. Tea cups were constantly refilled, usually accompanied by a biscuit or apple tart, and because there’s no harm in it (as we think), I’d often depart feeling jittery. I went on a health kick and knocked all caffeine on the head. I also gave…
-
perspectives
I’m often struck at how your attitude to a person or a situation can be coloured by the humour you are in. That can be influenced by so many things, including the simple biological problem of not having enough fuel in the body. This train of thought was triggered a few days ago when I was tramping through the woods, under grey skies, and intermittent rain. I’m not a fan of ashen clouds and drizzle, but here I am in Ireland, where we get a lot of it. It’s not the best light for taking photographs, so there is a tendency to resent it. Yet, if that’s what I have,…
-
forest moods
I walk in the woods and forests in my area regularly. I’m always struck by the different atmosphere in them depending on the weather, the season, and the varieties of trees. They also contain pockets of strangeness. All is friendly and light at first, and suddenly you walk into a watchful area, where footfalls are muffled, and you hold your breath a little. Then there are the parts which radiate a magical luminescence and anything could happen – anything could step from behind that tree. This is why so many fantasy stories and fairy tales are set in woodlands. People can disappear in them. Time stretches under their canopy of…
-
Twisted Fairy Tales reviews
I haven’t mentioned my collection Twisted Fairy Tales in some time, which is available to buy on Amazon, and many book stores in the USA. The reviews so far have been mostly positive, and I’m hearing that it’s been selling well, especially in Barnes & Noble in the USA. This gladdens my heart of course! One reviewer on Amazon mentioned that it was too dark and descriptive for her nine-year-old son. That made me smile. When I was nine I would have thought ‘challenge accepted!’ and sought it out at once. It all depends on the child, however. I’d always had a fascination with dark fiction. Two reviews have made…
-
favourite coffee mugs
I drink a lot of hot drinks throughout the day, coffee and herbal teas mostly. I have a wide variety of mugs I like to use, and a couple of strange rules have arisen. First, most of my mugs are strictly divided into coffee or tea mugs. There’s no cross-contamination between the two. There is only one exception, and that’s a set of matching pottery mugs that I put out ‘for company’, and they have to be flexible. Secondly, some mugs are mine and some are Martin’s. We share a couple of them. Technically I could banish these rules and make it a free-for-all. The world wouldn’t end if coffee…
-
a floral interlude
Events in the world over the last couple of days have rendered me a little mute. I received a bunch of flowers yesterday from my mother, and here are a trio of images I took this morning during the windswept sunshine. Sometimes I need to remember beauty remains in the world.
-
a new camera
I got a little extra money recently so I decided to splash out on a new compact camera on Saturday. I purchased a Canon Ixus 510 HS. It’s small, glossy black, and has a touchscreen, so it’s been fun to try it out. This was my first photo. A close up of the action figure Trinity from The Matrix movie. I liked the shadows cast on the wall from her guns. Holding the figure in one hand and taking the phone one-handed wasn’t ideal, but she looks pretty badass. I caught this pair of swans from behind cover in Galway city yesterday. They were meandering around the canal, enjoying the…
-
guest post for Joseph D'Lacey
I am regularly asked to write articles for friends or blog posts for web sites I’ve worked with before, and sometimes I just can’t fit it into my schedule. Not surprisingly, I am often asked to discuss issues about women or feminism, but despite what people may think, I don’t want to bang on that drum exclusively. Although, it has to be drummed more than I would like. A couple of months ago Joseph D’Lacey asked me to write a guest blog post for his web site, and one of his topic suggestions was to write about my mushroom photos. Joseph had often admired them when I’d tweeted links to…
-
eat your veggies
I’ve been a vegetarian now for about sixteen years, and for many of them I’ve not been a fan of salads. That’s because what constitutes a salad in a restaurant used to be browning iceberg lettuce (flavourless), chunks of raw onion (not a fan), tomato, and if you were lucky, cucumber. Yet, recently I’ve been converted to the joys of a good salad. Here’s small side-salad I made for myself today. What would have made it more excellent was avocado, which I adore, but it wasn’t ripe enough. I was too lazy to scrape a carrot for shavings, which would also have been nice. I love carrots. I think I…
-
disappointment
Life is a constant state of flux. In any one day we can shift through a variety of moods depending on how the world acts on us. From rudeness from a stranger, to a kind word from a friend, to sipping that great cup of coffee while reading a good book, or seeing scarlet when a driver cuts you off dangerously on the road. The thing to remember is that something good is always around the corner, which is not always easy to recall when your head is spinning from bad news. Disappointment is something everyone in the world deals with, but it’s an occupational hazard for those who create,…
