Three quinces, two years

The fruits of the Japanese Quince smell divine: a sweet and delicious fragrance that's impossible to describe. Left in a room, they pervade it rather than fill it with their scent. I remember reading somewhere once that smells always have to be described in terms of other smells we know - we can't find another way to 'tell' them to each other.  The best I can do with Japanese Quince is tell you to think of apple crossed with lemon with a tincture of jasmine; that's the nearest I can get. You'll just have to make do with this picture or maybe go and find some in your own garden or a friend's and inhale that beautiful perfume yourself.

Japanese quince (Chaenomeles japonica.)

Since my own Chaenomeles didn't produce much fruit this year, I picked these up from my sister's garden (thanks SB) because I love their shape and I hope to draw them at some stage. I drew some from my own garden earlier this year (in February) when I was just getting back into this drawing thing, and I really enjoyed their shape.  I hope these three will last until the yew is complete (it has to be done by the end of this month!) and I'll have a go then. A break from 'colouring in' the yew this week took the form of fun with textures, as I quickly sketched a sweet chestnut shell I'd found in some woods a few weeks ago. Not a great sketch but it was a bit of light relief: lots of learning to do on textures still.

Ouch! a bit of work to do yet with textures (Sweet chestnut shells/cases)

Autumn has passed into winter this week as we've moved into November. The first frost came, gently, and whitened the morning grass in the field. The bright orange of Chinese Lanterns and Iris foetidissima berries brought recompense for the cool temperatures, grey skies and long nights; the winter rains have left rainbows in their wake, pointing to the deep reds of the maples and Sedums in the garden. Only seven weeks to the solstice...

The first gentle frost of winter

Chinese lanterns light up the house

Iris foetidissima needs a place in the garden *just* for the berries at this time of the year

Not a crock of gold, but the Japanese maple will do nicely thank you...

Japanese maples, so good we have them twice

This is blog-post no. 104 - marking two years of weekly blogs. Who'd've thunk? Not me certainly when I typed two short paras back in November 2011. Thank you dear readers (you know who you are) for sticking with it. I'm going to keep with the blog though I'm not sure how, but I do know it's time for a bit of a change; this may be as simple as less frequent posting, if, as I suspect, I can't think of anything else, but I'm open to ideas... (Suggestions on a (virtual) postcard please to erica).

Hope to see you back here in a couple of weeks. Go well all.

On Donal's Pond

This summer, my late brother's two marvellous sons had a busy time of it, helping their uncle day after day to remove tons of soil from one of his fields--in just the right place, where the water table is at just the right level--to create a beautiful pond. It will  be a wildlife pond on their uncle's farm (it even has a little island in the middle where, hopefully, ducks and maybe moorhens can nest safely), but not just that: it will be a place for family and friends to sit and think, or remember, or just be. It's called Donal's Pond and it will be--no, is already--a lovely way to remember him. We saw it for the first time this weekend: thanks to DW and my two great nephews for making such a peaceful place. We all agreed that Donal would approve...

Donal's Pond

The sun sets on Donal's Pond

Back in Dublin after a couple of days in the countryside, there was the right weather and enough time to enjoy Autumn's unfolding: low sunlight on the Scots Pine in the park in the mornings, and seed heads coming into their own in the garden. Desultory tidying up in the greenhouse and garden meant I could be out in the cool sunshine and it also gave me a chance to note autumn and summer meeting in the pool: autumn releases the leaves from the now plum- and raspberry-coloured Japanese Maple and scatters them around the garden; and meanwhile the late summer temperatures we've had for much of October have kept the waterlilies blooming.

My drawing of the yew tree for the Irish Alphapet has ground to a shuddering halt - abject terror of the 'Real' paper and a not insignificant problem with composition... and so I've distracted myself with a little bit of sketching. Where would we be without displacement work?

Morning sun and Scots Pine

 Allium seed heads

Hosta seed head

Dodgy phone picture of a sketchy Agapanthus seed head

Summer lingers, Autumn comes: water lily and fallen maple leaf in the pool

Have a good week all.

Rain and moonshadows

The rain came. And the wind. The leaves came down on the footpaths, turning me back into a seven-year-old shooshing her way through the shape-shifting drifts. The witch hazel in the front garden had each leaf turn to a painter's palette of fading greens, bright yellows and tangerines. The full moon showed in the sky in the morning, snagged in the upper branches of the Scots Pine in the park, casting moonshadows of me as I walked with Izzy. Cycling home along the canal, I had to stop as the setting sun shone down the waterway, lighting up just some of the graceful seed heads of the reeds.

Autumn is here, no question of it now.

And this weekend the clocks go back...

Evening sun lights the reeds on the canal bank

Sheltering from the rain under a young beech tree in the park

Witch Hazel leaves in the front garden

And again - who could resist?

Autumn means conkers - I finished the drawing

Have a good week all.

Water under Bridges

The calls caught my attention first - the characteristic zzt zzt zzt (well roughly, it's so hard to write down a bird call, but with the wonder of the web, you have a listen here) - a flock of long-tailed tits chattering their way through a willow tree over the stream. It was early morning and a walk with Izzy to get the Saturday newspapers was enlivened by this treat on the way. They're great little birds and I don't see them that often; they're tiny, about the size of a goldcrest or wren, but with the eponymous tail that looks all off balance, their black and white heads, and the hint of a shell-like pink on their bodies, they're unmistakeable. Lovely.

Earlier in the week, just before sunrise, Iz and I wandered into the field to the surprise of one of the local foxes. It did that watchful thing: it stares at you, watches every move you make and then if you turn away for just a second (to check where your mini-schnauzer is, for example) it's gone, as if into thin air. A handy trick for anyone, but foxes seems to do it best.

In the garden the asters are looking wonderful. The verbena (V. bonariensis) is still looking great and now that my tall asters are out, they echo it very nicely farther up the garden. But as some plants come into centre stage it's exeunt stage left for others, and as they do, there's beauty to be found. The hosta leaves fade to ochres and greys, curl, and their quilted texture comes into even greater relief.

And autumn leaves from a morning walk filter the mid-morning sunlight to present me with a stained glass light moment on my desk and at the same time remind me of the changes outside the walls of the seasonless office.

Office leaves and chestnuts

Asters seen through a haze of Molinia caerula 'Transparent'

Beauty's where you find it: a hosta fades in the garden

After musing over the blog a bit in the last few weeks, and going public with some of those musings last week, I thought I'd get back to basics today - quotidian beauty, there for all of us, in ordinary surroundings... Many thanks to those of you who encouraged me to keep going with the blog -- here, on facebook and even (gasp!) in person. I'll certainly finish out these few weeks and after that I may make some changes... we'll see!

Out in the heart of autumn this week, it's mushroom time. In the park, in the field, on trees, in the Devil's Glen--where we went today--the fungi are doing their thing. I'd been hoping we might find chanterelles, but the Devil's Glen is a mixed woodland where we were walking today and when I've found chanterelles before it has been on the floor of conifer forests, so maybe another time. The Vartry river flows through the Devil's Glen, in fact we crossed over it as we drove to the forest, over one of those tiny old narrow stone bridges that has a V cut into one of the parapets to allow a person to stand in should a cart/carriage/car be passing over the water. We walked along the river, under a mix of trees (oak, rowan, hazel, field maple, beech, sweet chestnut) from which the leaves fell as slowly and silently as painted snow. At one point some movement caught my eye on the other bank of the river; it was a small mammal, flowing like black ink over and under rocks and fallen limbs of trees. A mink: not a welcome sight, but impressive in its own way. Along the way, sculptures blended into the woodland and quotes from Seamus Heaney's poetry were carved into benches or stone. It's quite the beautiful spot and we had it mostly to ourselves. I hadn't been there for many years and it was good to be back. We shall return sooner the next time.

Park fungi

Unknown fungus in Devil's Glen

Xylaria hypoxylon, Candlesnuff fungus

Quercus petraea, Oak,  in the Devil's Glen

Sorbus aucuparia, Rowan, only the gorgeous berries remain

'Wound' , made with Sequoia wood, by Cathy Carmen, 2002

One of the Heaney quotes: "I have to clean the steps"
This is also a spot the schnauzer (it has been a while...)

 Another Heaney quote (phew, that's a relief)

Okay, two things to end this week. The first is an unfinished drawing of some chestnuts from the local park (the chestnuts this year have been amazing, as have so many fruits). I did the drawing this afternoon, as a break from the lovely Yew tree.

Chestnuts, done with coloured pencil
(phone pic, so not great quality)

The second--given that we spent the morning by a river--is a beautiful song 'Water under Bridges' from Gregory Porter: a singer with a voice you could listen to all day and all night (thanks for that B.).



Have a good week all.