Summer Longings

Ah! my heart is weary waiting,
Waiting for the May--
Waiting for the pleasant rambles,
Where the fragrant hawthorn brambles,
With the woodbine alternating,
Scent the dewy way.
Ah! my heart is weary waiting,
Waiting for the May.
Ah! my heart is sick with longing,
Longing for the May--
Longing to escape from study,
To the young face fair and ruddy,
And the thousand charms belonging
To the summer's day.
Ah! my heart is sick with longing,
Longing for the May.

Denis Florence MacCarthy 1817-1882

Oh, I can't wait for the summer, the long days of doing nothing, the kids playing and exploring, the absence of study and timetables. Flowers, fruit salad and day trips to new places. This week has been very grey and gloomy with great long showers of rain but despite this, you can see how nature is again blooming, drawing her finery around her in bounteous joy. I have tiny salad seedlings popping up in pots and baby plums and cherries forming on the fruit trees. The apple tree, notoriously fickle has yet to show her hand but then she is an old Irish heirloom tree so we put up with her moods. The youthful quince twins appear to be almost miraculously free of rust this year, thank goodness I didn't pull them out.

I have walked for miles this week and eaten a lot of cake outside on my back step. Walking has become almost a meditative process for me, particularly in very bad weather! It becomes refreshing and soothing, one foot after the other, the little dog trotting alongside, walking out into the rain and solitude. Myself and the kids have watched this **video (**scroll down to the 3rd video) about beach artist Andreas Amador over and over again, how cool would this be to spend some hours doing this!

I have so many half-crafted posts I have been wanting to share but life keeps getting in the way. I have so many works in progress, books to review, fabric to find for my sewing project and many many seeds to plant. I am feeling a tiny bit overwhelmed as I have a huge OU deadline looming. Four thousand words in three weeks which will count for half the marks on my course. Thank-goodness, I am off to Newry for our day-school tomorrow which hopefully should give us all some inspiration on how to progress.

Also, our book-cub has been picked for the TV3* book-club of the month for May so we have to read Mansfield Park for next Wednesday for filming on Thursday. Despite hating the sound of my own voice and getting my photograph taken, I managed to volunteer to speak on camera. I was at the time fuelled by a lovely South African shiraz and feeling ecstatic from completing the first 'half' (12 thousand words across 7 months!) of my course. Groan. We are hoping that they bring lots of make-up and hair stylists...

I am going to take a little break from blogging until this is all finished and hopefully when I come back I shall begin the McCall's sew-along and have plenty of little veggie seedlings to show you. Oh and the Giro d'Italia sweeps through our town this weekend, the whole place has gone pink in it's honour! See you on the 6th of June! xxx

(*Irish television channel, similar to ITV in the UK)
(**scroll down to the 3rd video)