Middlefocus

  Walking along the shoreline at Crawfordsburn Country Park I spotted something unusual - Cored limpet shells suspended from tree branches. I cannot work out how they got there. But I can think of some questions. Were the innards of the shells scavenged by sea birds and did they get at the flesh by piercing the crests? But if they did why are the holes so large and even? Large beaked birds needing room to swallow. Or did the sea sculpt the hole with its abrasive ebb and flow?  Scooping out the weakest part of the shell, where the limpet had no strength to hold? And were the shells collected by children or beach-combing adults to be suspended from the branches in an act of creativity? They do look pretty. Maybe it's a coast-liner rag-tree type custom. The hanging of a shell to make a wish or ask for favour. I'll be on the lookout for cored shells when next there and for a suitable branch on which to hang them. And make a creative wish.

It's by now a tradition in our house on Saint Patrick's Day to watch together a film with an Irish theme. Usually the day offers an annual excuse to watch Walt Disney's Darby O'Gill and the Little People - a film that always seemed to be playing locally when I was growing up. But this year nostalgia demanded something different, something more in tune with the sensibilities of these pandemic times. The choice was John Huston's last film The Dead portraying the last story in James Joyce's Dubliners set in 1904 on January 6 - the feast of the Epiphany.  The film starring Anjelica Huston, the director's daughter, and Donal McCann was made in 1987 but I first saw it when it was released on VHS, replacing it years later when that platform gave way to DVD. It would have been lovely if subtitles had been incorporated because some of the language is so beautiful. Not to worry though as the Penguin Modern Classic edition of the book has been a constant companion th...

After initially feeling they were "unfinished" I've been learning about the paper process for deckle edged books. Now, I rather like them. Dog ears on the other hand still get my deckles up.

A long stroll along an almost deserted beach at the National Trust's Murlough Reserve near Dundrum, County Down. With just a handful of cars in the parking area and passing only a few people on the 600m boardwalk down to the shore, we guessed correctly that the beach would be fairly empty. This really was social distancing. Buttoned up against the chill and facing the breeze from the sea it wasn't long before blood came rushing to warm the cheeks. No need for an anti-virus mask here. We took deep lungfuls of the fresh salt air and immediately felt the benefit. The sand was washed smooth with no previous steps before us and the sea seemed to have deposited various qualities of shingle and stone in lovely gradations. A perfect case study for a school geography trip and a salutary lesson in the organising power of nature. Here and there shells dotted the sand, washed ashore or perhaps dropped by feeding gulls. They lay with their scalloped grooves and ridges upward, the anticipate...

The driveway is full of them.  Leaves. They gather against the walls that frame the length of the driveway and road outside the house. Each car that passes flurries them up to find a new resting place or flattens them into the tarmac where they stick unbudging, resistant to all but the heaviest-duty bristle brush. The leaves that have made our property their home don't come from our trees which are mainly evergreen. They hail from a deciduous domain, from elsewhere but seasons and wind have no knowledge of borders and so there is the annual autumnal task of collection and disposal. If the leaves were from a book it would be a multi-parter as the task of collection is repeated often until the last leaves leave their branches. A leaf-blower to get my own back was a useful purchase. It enables me to blow them quickly into heaped mounds for later lifting. An old neighbour with country ways once advised me not to waste my time trying to brush them into such piles. Leave it to the wind, ...