Enjoy all the seasons – they’ll happen anyway!

Double Vision with Charlie Adley

The heather! Thanks for that heather! Now fading into the incoming darkness, the heather on Connemara’s bogs this year has been utterly magnificent. To whatever combination of weather and insect life brought about such a splendid natural carpet, I say: “Thank you. It was breathtaking.”

The seasons here in the West of Ireland are heralded by changes in flower colour. At the first sign of spring, celandine’s sunburst flowers announce the arrival of the yellow season, followed by the supernovae of primroses, exploding yellow stars of light and powerful intent.

Despite unwelcome hordes of noxious ragwort, the odd dandelion and stray buttercup, the yellows are long gone, superseded as always by the purples. Incredibly prolific, swathes of pale purple willow herb lined the bohreens, tussling and rustling with the cow parsley that also did so well this year.

Magical wands of purple loosestrife rise up from river banks and ditches, while hundreds of different types of thistle burst Emperor purple from tiny short spiky ouch that hurt stems, to vast soft towering varieties that appear to defy gravity.

Instead of dreading the cold months, I look forward to different habits. No more obsessive watching of the weather forecast, trying to work out when it might be dry enough for long enough to mow the lawn, I’ll just empty the ash bucket and build a fresh fire.

My lovely sister cannot stand the short dark days. She dreams of Los Angeles, where seasons come and go without anyone noticing, but I’m more than fond of the seasons: I need them. Sometimes I can build up such a head of steam, I can’t see my need to slow down. Nothing forces you to put on the brakes better than a storm force wind and three days of solid rain.

It’s nature’s way of telling us to keep warm, eat lots of high fat foods and sleep a lot. Given the chance I’d happily hibernate. We’re hairy mammals and that’s what a lot of them do, but oh no, we can’t. In an effort to try and overpower the darkness, we’ve mashed together the Pagan and Christian and created a commercial behemoth that is still, thankfully, way too far away to mention.

What were we thinking? Was it some kind of human-wide hubris? Did we imagine that we can ignore our natural rhythms, by being the busiest we are all year, at a time when we need to be calm?

To read Charlie’s column in full, please see this week’s Galway City Tribune.