March Favourites...

Lots of cards I liked this month!

The first one was with a stamp I received as a gift, and the tulip has three layers adding lovely dimension.

Owl Through The Year

Somewhat late, this was always intended to go with the Christmas gift of a snowman sampler as something more suitable for year-round display. Finally taking down my own Winter sampler and replacing it with the Spring one over the weekend (more snow) was the motivation I needed to finally finish it off - and make a card to send with it.

Progression

Guiness are building a micro-distillery in the old power plant...I should have taken a few photos late last year when they temporarily had the new name up over the front door, and a lovely vintage van outside for some publicity shots.  Then the hoardings went up over the railings, and for the last couple of months, they depicted  the architect's impression of what it will look like when finished. Then last week those hoardings were all covered up with plain white painted wood. And I noticed that someone had been painting on the end of the wall. For as long as I can remember it's had a slight trompe l'oeil effect of a shadowed arch, which you can just about still see in the first photo. If I had ever found the time to add meta-tags to all my photos I would be able to find one, but in current circumstances that's not likely. I think I need about two months off work to really organise all my photos...

Anyway, the two days I passed it last week, it was being worked on. Yesterday I passed again, and it must have been completed in time for the St. Patrick's Day festivities.

As you can see, there was a marked improvement in the weather after the holiday weekend was over and done with!

Happy St. Patrick's Day

And a couple of rural snaps from last weekend, when we attended a funeral in a town along the Shannon.

Our snow days meant that this year instead of my usual one or two cards, I actually made and mailed four, all variation on this theme. This is one of the ones done with watercolour pencils.

I had a few more pictures of a painted hoarding in town, but they'll have to wait till I have time to edit them.

The last of the snow...

The thrush photos were taken last Sunday. We don't often see them in the garden, and with no sense of scale, and so puffed up against the cold, this one is remarkable robin-like.

The following picture was taken on Wednesday as I walked past the local school after returning some books to the library - not much left, but the boys were having fun pulling off chunks and having a snow-fight.

And then the last photo was on my way to work on Thursday morning, as I walked out to the bus stop. This was the first frosty morning for a while... The snow was still drifted quite deeply along the side of our house and in the back yard. C dug enough to open the back gate on Wednesday evening, and on Thursday cleared a path along the side of the house so he could get the motorbike it. Warmer temperatures and rain means that most of it is now gone, and I think most people are grateful to be getting back to normal. 

Snow Day

I was glad I made the trek to collect the bird food yesterday, it's been in great demand today. There was enough of a drift outside the back door that I had to climb out a window to give the birds their first feed, and to shovel the snow away from the door enough to open it. Not great photos because in the end the snow was just starting to cling to the window. We've had a lot of blackbirds and chaffinches, plus the usual blue, great and coal tits and goldfinches.

This month's blog header is a photo from Farmleigh last March.

February Favourites

Anecdotally, because it's St. Brigid's Day, the 1st of February is the start of Spring in Ireland. I've never bought into that - but even allowing that this is the 1st of March it's far from a spring-like day.

I'll be back later with a few bird photos, but C is working from home today and using my desk, so I won't get time to upload them till this evening. Not that they're great anyway, taken through the window.  We have a small flock of blackbirds in the back garden right now - I should have bought a bag of apples for them but they're pecking away at what I have, along with some breadcrumbs and sunflower seeds sprinkled on the snow.