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The woman on the Yellow Bicycle

~ The Art of enjoying life as I pedal my bike.

The woman on the Yellow Bicycle

Monthly Archives: June 2015

The Lost art of reading maps and other childhood memories.

19 Friday Jun 2015

Posted by stephpep56 in a story

≈ 18 Comments

Tags

bread making, caravanning, childhood memories, families, Hills, holidays, Maps, tea, the burren, the yellow bicycle, travel

summer 2013 236

My Dad is leaning over the table frowning.

In front of him, a large ordnance survey map covers the place where we should, at this moment, be eating our tea.

We are hungry but know better than to voice this and sit tensely whilst he traces his finger along an orange line.

My mother would like to put the dishes on the table but she also knows better than to suggest moving the map.

Instead she leans over her husband’s shoulder and watches his moving finger.

‘There is is! there’s that wretched hill’  She says suddenly.

My mother never uses bad language. The worst I’ve heard her say was ‘fluther’ and that was only when she was put to the pin of her collar by her unruly bunch.

‘For fluther’s sake can you not be quiet for one minute’ She would mutter her hand over the mouthpiece of the phone as she tried to order the week’s groceries from the new H.Williams store at the bottom of the road.  She had discovered this to be a far easier way of feeding her family than traipsing us all down and back up again with pram and baskets of shopping.

‘And a pound of rajabari tea’ She would finish and glaring at us, replace the receiver onto the cradle.

(My dad was fussy about the tea he drank and even when it came on the market refused to drink tea bagged tea. ‘Dust swept up from the tea warehouses’ He declared.)

She has also spotted the offending hill before my dad does because her eyes are sharper eyes than his. They have to be. She is responsible for keeping them on the above mentioned large brood of unruly children.

One christmas as she was guiding her young family in through the doors of one of Dublin’s large department stores, a man coming out the other way with an equally sizable bunch, gave me a clout and, grabbing my coat, pushed me in among his.

My mother was furious and turned on him like an angry hen,

‘I’m so sorry I thought she was one of mine’ He blubbered apologetically, a wild look in his eye ‘My wife is in hospital’ He continued ‘having our eight and I thought it would be a good idea to take the kids to see the christmas lights. I think I am going mad. I’m terrified of losing one of them. The wife would never forgive me. I find it hard to tell one from the other’.

My mother patted him sympathetically on the shoulder. She understood men well. Hadn’t her own husband landed her children in dangerous situations now and again. Rowing boats etc without a life jacket between them. The fact that he always brought them safely home was probably due more to the survival instincts of the children then his care.

She bid him good luck and trundled us down o’connell street, paying no heed to me holding my smarting cheek.

I always wondered what my life would have been like if my Moms sharp eyes hadn’t spotted me and I had disappeared into the folds of another family forever.

I might have had a proper dressing table for one. (An object I had always longed for). We had drawing tables and work tables but no frilly- girly- shiny -mahogany dressing tables. Even one without the oval mirror would have made me happy .

But back to my Dad, or better still my Mom.

‘There’s the hill right there’ she repeated.

‘Well spotted May’ my father said pushing her finger aside and drawing a large X on the spot.

We all breathed a sigh of relief and relaxed. Now that we had found the hill that caused the burning of the the clutch last year, maybe my Dad would fold the map away and we could proceed with our tea.

But he wasn’t finished yet.

‘We can make a detour this way by making a run at the shorter hill. His finger was following a yellow line now. He looked worried all the same and so did we.

‘Making a run at it‘ had connotations known only to us Peppards and brought with it the familiar smell of a burning clutch.

As much as we wished that sentence didn’t exist, it continued to be mentioned over tea.

(I should state here that my dad was always in charge of the mealtime conversations)

For ‘making a run at it’ meant crossing one’s fingers and holding one’s breath and hoping no one would come hurtling down the other way on the narrow street forcing you to drive slower.

It meant hoping that we wouldn’t get stuck behind a tractor

or worse still a herd of cattle .

But like it or not ‘making a run at it’ was sometimes the only way my father could get the large caravan (it needed to be large to contain us all) up a steep hill with his vauxhall estate.

Filled to the brim with rain gear, painting gear, fishing gear, boating gear, baking gear, (just as he refused to drink tea bagged tea he equally refused to eat shop bread) children, dogs and once even a cage of black mice (mine! no way was I going to leave them at home) it had a tough time on these journeys.

And we leant forward hopefully in our seats as though our sheer will would help it pull us up the hill of some market town without burning out the clutch.

Last year when the clutch burned out we had to sleep in the caravan on the edge of town overnight as the car was left into the local garage (we were very lucky there was a garage) and wait for a new clutch to be delivered from dublin the next day (it arrived on the mail train! no courier vans back then).

We were mad because we were missing a day of running barefoot along white sands, netting shrimps in clear turquoise waters, climbing rocks and diving into freezing atlantic waters.

My Dad was mad because there was nowhere in the town he could fish.

My Mom took it all in her stride and made a delicious dinner on a small caravan stove, made up our beds and tucked us in.

We fell asleep to the noise of the odd car passing instead of the crash of waves.

But that was last summer and now it was late spring and we were preparing for our next journey west.

‘Where would we be without maps’ my Dad sighed contentedly. Happy now that the decision of our route to the west of ireland is made.

As far as he was concerned, other than to drive the car, his work was done.

It was now up to my mother to take over and start organising the packing. A feat in itself, taking up to two weeks to accomplish and needing the organization skills of a quartermaster preparing to move out a large army.

But back to maps.

One of my older sisters had the thankless job of navigating. On leaving the house, My Dad would put the map in her hands with the instruction ‘Give me the directions in plenty of time, I can’t turn this rig out on a coin you know or stop it suddenly!’

This was true and My Dad made a great show when he was taking a corner. Making a huge and exaggerated turn of the steering wheel almost crossing to the opposite side of the road whilst doing so.

‘It’s the next left’ My sister the navigator would pipe up from the back seat where we were sliding about on sleeping bags and pillows.

‘What’ My father would roar ‘ how can it be so soon’ and he would keep driving straight on while we watched the sign post for Galway or Mayo or Kerry or where ever we were heading, pointing to the left.

After a while he would pull into the side.

‘Give me the map’ he would thunder.

Silence from us in the back. We knew better than to giggle at his red face.

‘Now I’ll have to find a place to turn’.

As if it was the fault of the map reader.

Turning often involved unhitching the caravan and reversing it manually if the road wasn’t wide enough, which meant us all getting out to help. Luckily cars were few and far between back then and some of us were employed to stop any car that did happen along while the manoeuvre was taking place.

And what did we do (the none navigators) to amuse ourselves on this long route?

We played ‘Waving at the passers by’. A game where we waved manically at everyone who passed us or whom we passed, and laughed uproariously at their expressions as they tried to remember did they know us.

Which was fun until we waved at an old farmer cycling his bike. . When he lifted his hand to wave back, his bike wobbled and he fell into the ditch.

We thought this was the funniest thing ever.

Not so My Dad. He was furious and his hand came flying back giving however he could reach a wallop. Unfortunately it was the one person too busy to be part of the game.

The innocent map reader got the brunt of his hand.

One would imagine after all that childhood trauma I would have turned my back on maps and veered towards sat navs and gps instead.

But far from it and my love of maps lingers almost to the point of passion.

I have most of the ordnance survey maps of ireland.

Worn and sellotaped at the folds from years of use, nothing pleases me more over the winter months, than to spread them out on my own table and and follow the lines as my father once did and and imagining, through reading the contours, and sounding the place names what they looked like in reality.

I have one favorite map that is more mended than any of the others.

A black and white Tim Robinson map of the Burren.

Crumpled and sellotaped and spotted by the leftovers of errant flies. I pour over this map endlessly.

Not only am I not distracted by the color (now I must employ my imagination to even greater extent) but it shows every holy well and archaeological site in the area.

Last october I headed to clare in search of one particular well which has the cure of the eyes (A good map reader needs a sharp pair)

It was half way up a hill not unlike and running parallel to corkscrew hill.

A solid switch back climb, too steep for me to cycle, though I have seen racing cyclists make it to the top.

so I walked and pushed up and up. It never bothers me to walk with my bike. I am out exploring after all and sometimes things can be missed even whilst cycling.

Alongside me, the hazel and willow scrub were filled with finches, who flitted past with no fear.

Stopping at various view points, I looked back over the grey burren fields, laid out like immense stone amphitheaters.

Here and there late rock roses bloomed, their heads crouched low in the crevices of limestone. and sometimes a late flowering bloody cranesbill peeked shyly at me.

The majority of tourists were gone and I was only passed by a few cars mostly making there way down the steep road.

At last I reached the place I had marked on the map I noted a truck with some spades and shovels leaning against it, pulled in on the ditch.

Ignoring it I made my way through the scrub and started my search for a trail that would lead me to the well.

As I pushed further into the undergrowth I could hear rustling as though of animals.

I pushed into the scrub following the sounds.

A man’s cursing and then sounds of much crunching.

‘ya feckin’ boyo’ followed by a massive crunching sound.

In a clearing three men in luminous jackets with Clare county council written in red across their backs, were picking hazelnuts and cracking them between teeth.

‘The Holy well Mam?’ They appeared red faced, caught in the act! ‘We’ll show ya’

When they were gone, I knelt and splashed some of the clear water on my eyes and taking out a tiny bottle filled it to the brim.

I planned to use it daily over the winter months. Ensuring that my eyes were always up to map reading and that even without a map, they would lead me to places of such greenness and magic as this Holy Well surrounded by mossy rocks and hazel scrub in the heart of the grey stone fields of the Burren.

But there are times too when I like to leave my map behind and just explore and see where I end up.

Then when I get home I open it out and find where I was lost. A sort of backwards use of a map I suppose you could call it.

(if that makes sense).

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The final episode of the complete and utter vividness etc of Matilda Maricella

15 Monday Jun 2015

Posted by stephpep56 in a story

≈ 15 Comments

Tags

arrogance, attraction, bamboo, Cycling in france, goldfish, hummingbird hawk-moth, japanese tea, love, painting, pumpkins, serenity, watercolors

DSCF4944

The story so far:

Matilda maricella had got herself into a bit of a pickle.

She was cycling across france on her very vivid and colourful yellow bicycle.

A thing she did regularly.

That year though was different.

She was on a sort of pilgrimage of the self!

A kind of search for her vividness which she felt had slipped a bit due to the severity of a certain illness, the savagery of the necessary surgery and the tedious treatment that followed.

You see Matilda had been diagnosed many months before with a not very great form of cancer.

Whether her vividness had caused her cancer (Oh how she loved those sunny days and who could blame her, there wasn’t a lot of them around in Ireland)

Or her vividness had cured her, she was not sure!  But she was now on the mend and almost back to her alkazeltery self.

It was her leg, groin and tummy that got the brunt of the surgeon’s knife and she sported a long zigzagged scar which she referred to, when asked by curious swimmers (Matilda also loved to swim) as her shark bite.

(She would snigger to herself when they would lose interest in the odd appearance of her leg and make hastily for the shore).

But it wasn’t the appearance of the scar that worried her!

It was the thought of not being able to cycle.

When she voiced this fear to her surgeon, a merry man, almost as vivid as herself and also a lover of the bicycle, he reassured her, telling her that cycling was the best way to recover but adding that maybe she should drop the scarf.

‘After all’ His blue eyes danced nearly as brilliantly as hers, ‘I have not carried out my knifely skills and you have not gone through a year of harrowing treatment only to be lost to an Isadora Duncan style death.

So there she was without her scarf, toiling up and over the hills of the Montagne Noir to the gates of the old Abbey, her scarred leg skillfully hidden under a bright flowing skirt.

Now, while she was ill, she hadn’t really given men or love much thought and it was not her intention to do so on this trip.

So when she gazed into the eye’s of Le Monsieur as he opened the gates of the old abbey she became confused.

And his closeness to her at breakfast the following morning as he fed her various flavored pumpkin jams only added to her confusion.

Now read on if you will…..

~

Back in her bedroom, Matilda paused from gathering her painting equipment, and looking at herself in the mirror, proceeded to give her reflection a good talking to.

‘Well you ARE in a pickle’ She addressed her flushed face ‘This trip is about you and your journey in search of your vividness. It’s a pilgrimage to the self! Not a holiday romance with some bossy french man telling you what to do and what to eat’.

The memory of him feeding her the cointreau and ginger pumpkin jam, his shining brown eyes so close to hers, his white toothed smile almost blinding her, came flooding back and she sank down on the bed.

Out of sight of the telltale mirror she smirked to herself and smoothed her dress feeling the shapely lines of her body.

She had lost a lot of weight on the treatment, two stone nearly and all that cycling had left her as fit as a fiddle.

Getting up and wandering into the bathroom she examined her own teeth. There was a piece of green pumpkin skin caught between her two front ones.

Dammit.

~

He was standing at the foot of the stairs when she came out of her room.

‘I have been waiting’ he said impatiently.

Her heart gave a small leap. She couldn’t remember the last time a man had been impatient for her company.

She smiled coyly at him in what she imagined to be an alluring way but he just turned on his heel and made his way across the dewy lawn.

She scuttled after him.

As she passed the fig tree she saw the yellow bicycle was missing

‘I locked it away’ He said airily when he saw her frantic look.

‘The bird poop from those silly birds would ruin it. Look at them! They are really just like a bunch of dowdy women all pale and uninteresting and noisy. But you! You are different!’ He smiled charmingly at her ‘You are so vibrant and strong and anyway’ He added taking her hand and smoothing it with his own large one ‘You won’t need that yellow bike today because you will be painting!’

She simpered at his compliment and ignoring the tiny knot of irritation prickling her, concentrated instead on his tall handsome figure leading the way.

From behind he reminded her of someone but she couldn’t put a finger on who.

He stopped at the grecian tower.

Underneath the tower, was a small room. Really just a covered patio opening out onto a courtyard.

Furnished simply with two rattan chairs and a small table, someone had swept it clean with only a few abandoned bamboo leaves under a wrought iron day bed on which lay many green pumpkins of various shapes and sizes

A hedge of bamboo sheltered the room and to one side lay an ornamental pond and beyond that a split chestnut fence.

Matilda knelt down by the edge of the pond and ignoring her reflection she gazed into it’s depths.

Small goldfish darted in and out from under the lily pads.

Sometimes only a head could be seen, sometimes just a tail.

Monets painting of the lily pond in Giverny came to mind and she straightened up and set out her paints on the table with determination.

‘No no! But you will paint my pumpkins’ Le Monsieur demanded somewhat waspishly as though reading her mind.

Matilda looked from the pumpkins to the pond and back again.

‘Ok’ she shrugged laughing ‘I will paint your pumpkins’.

‘Good!’ He exclaimed.

Turning on his heel he walked away turning once by the fig tree to wave at her.

The small brown birds twittered pleadingly as he passed under it but he paid them no heed.

The morning went by pleasantly.

She filled her notebook with sketches of pumpkins but couldn’t resist doing a quick watercolor of the pond.

Picking up a medium brush, she worked loosely, indeed almost carelessly, with those colors she loved so much.

Strong manganese blue for the water. Bright cadmium orange for the goldfish. Vivid hookers green for the bamboo. Indigo and payne’s grey for the mottled shadow and finally her favorite burnt sienna for the stone.

How familiar she was with their vibrancy.

And yet opposed to that vibrancy was the peacefulness of her surroundings disturbed only by birdsong and the sigh of the breeze through the bamboo leaves.

The scent of the jasmine was making her drowsy but she painted on in a languid fashion.

Every now and again a bamboo leaf would break free and seesaw slowly down before landing boat like on the water of the pond only to be nosed at by a curious goldfish.

At last she finished and looking up guiltily, pulled the page free and laid it on the chair to dry before returning to paint the pumpkins.

Mixing more subdued oxide of chromium with a little terre verte to subdue it further, she carefully painted the pumpkins, capturing their submissiveness as they lay inertly on the iron bed.

Now and again she rose to stretch her back and wander through the gardens.

Small butterflies landed on the various flowering bushes and once she thought she saw a hummingbird zooming in and out of a peony rose, but it may have just been an oversized bumble bee.

She would ask Le Monsieur later.

Far away a church bell rang. She counted the chimes.

It was twelve o’ clock.

~

Painting isn’t necessarily thirsty work but the fact that you can lose all sense of time sometimes means that you forget to drink and Matilda was just about to go in search of a glass of water when she spotted him making his way towards her.

He was dressed completely in white now except for the wide brimmed black hat and looked for all the world like Monet himself

Carrying a small basket in one hand and swinging a walking cane in the other he marched across the grass with vigor.

‘I have brought you some tea’ He announced, setting the basket down on the rattan table.

It was a delicate affair and when he undid the clasps a wisp of jasmine scented steam coiled up into the air.

It was as if she had rubbed aladdin’s lamp and let the genie escape.

‘Tres jolie n’est pas?’ he enquired all teeth and glittering eyes, shaded by the rim of his hat.

‘Is it japanese?’ she enquired

‘Qui! green jasmine sencha tea’ He replied.

Matilda had meant the basket which was lined in pink and blue flowered pattern silk with indentations for two cups and the teapot.

A beautiful piece of work

He lifted out a cup and with a flourish filled it from the pot.

He handed it to her, his fingers touching hers.

She blushed and lowered her head shyly.

She thought he would pour himself a cup but instead he picked up her sketch pad and turned the pages, examining her work carefully.

Some of the pages he frowned at.

Some he puckered his lips and nodded thoughtfully over.

Then he smiled ‘Now ziz is excellent!’

It was the submissive watercolor of the pumpkins on the daybed and although it was the one she was least happy with she found herself leaping at his approval, but she also felt a bit tired and drained.

‘Limp and colorless’ was how she described herself to her friends later when relaying her adventures. ‘As though all my color and energy was being drained out of me’.

Looking up at him as he perused her work she felt he was getting whiter and whiter.

Almost shining against the sun.

Suddenly she had one wish and that was to be not to be here being reeled in by this arrogant man, but to be flying along alone on her yellow bicycle, the wind in her hair the sun at her back, free as a bird

With sudden insight she wondered about all those little birds in the fig tree. Were they free or were they being held captive in this place.

Then it hit her!

Like a bolt out of the blue she knew why Le Monsieur felt so familiar.

He was exactly like her ex husband, at least personality wise.

Her ex who had sucked the vividness out of her over many years.

She put her hands to her cheeks in dismay.

How could she not have recognised it when he opened the gates.

How could she have been fooled again by this type of charm.

But there was no point berating herself

She gathered her slowed wits about her and tried desperately to draw on the energy and optimism that got her through her illness.

‘Em…actually I need to get my bicycle and cycle to the shops’ She said at last lamely.

‘But why?’

Was she imagining it or was he looking crossly at her?

‘You have everything you need here! What are you going to the shops for?’ He smiled appealingly at her ‘I can go to the supermarket for you in my car! You can give me a list! or tell me what it is you need’

With difficulty she forced herself to look away from those hypnotic eyes.

‘I need…. em’ she looked around wildly as though for inspiration.

‘Lady things’ She almost shouted ‘Yes I need some ladies things.’

She clutched her stomach as though getting a sudden menstrual cramp and let out a low moan for effect.

His face fell.

He looked embarrassed or perhaps it was it a look of disappointment even annoyance.

But still he didn’t lose control

‘Go then’ He ordered after a pause, as though it was his idea

‘Yes go to the shops!’

She thought he would demand that she return at a certain hour but he didn’t.

And that is how Matilda Maricella escaped from being turned into a little brown bird twittering helplessly.

Oh how joyously she sped back down those hills!

A splash of vibrant vividness against the darkness of the Montagne Noir.

Her hastily packed panniers bouncing happily on the back of her bike.

Down down down she flew, back to Montalieu.

To tell her story to the two Irish Moira’s and warn them to never ever EVER send a vivid and vibrant woman in Le Monsieur’s direction again unless of course she was happy to live like a little brown bird in a fig tree.

The end.

For what it is worth there is a hummingbird hawk-moth (Macroglossum stellatarum) in france which is probably what matilda mistook for a hummingbird and interestingly it flies not only at night but during the day too, enjoying the heat of the sun.

She looked it up when she got home as she never DID get a chance to ask Le Monsieur.

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At loss for words in summer.

10 Wednesday Jun 2015

Posted by stephpep56 in Uncategorized

≈ Leave a comment

Matilda Maricella is abandoned in France, Her affaire must wait, for whilst I was writing about her, summer crept upon me. She will understand (I hope you do too)…..

The inquisitive hen.

2010_0117manninect20100216

A while ago i wrote of how

i was filled with words 

but something has happened since then

 and now

it’s my heart that’s full

(my brain is empty)

i no longer want to speak 

or even write since summer has arrived 

Instead I want to leave those jumbled words behind

and go

where wildflowers grow haphazardly in soft purple ditches

where rushes whisper by lonely lakes and white bog cotton shyly dips

her wispy head among rows of darkened turf

and clouds are of importance

where blue shadowed mountains are mysterious and beckoning

where the singing sea is soothing 

where i can be silent and wandering

i will go there soon enough 

soon enough

soon

2010_0117manninect20100211

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stephpep56

stephpep56

Writer, storyteller, Artist, photographer, mother and grandmother, with a passion for living in the moment, for nature and gardening and meditatively pedalling my yellow bicycle which helps inspire my stories and observations of life. And what better place to be from and to live and cycle in then Ireland. A country filled to the brim with songs and stories, small boreens, lakes, mountains and wild seas. In between all the above I just about manage to squeeze in my real job as a nurse in a busy Hospital.

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copyright

Stephanie Peppard an and Thewomanontheyellowbicycle and the inquisitive hen 2014/2015.
This Written material, drawings, photographs and paintings are all my own original work. I would kindly ask that you do not use any of the above without my permission. Excerpts and links may be used provided that full and clear credit is given to Stephanie peppard and thewomanontheyellowbicycle and the inquisitive hen with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. thanks Steph.

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nickreeves

≈ fictionalpaper / piccoloscissors / creativeglue ≈

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Art • Nature • Exploration

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Wanderers on two wheels!

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a french garden

Reflections on nature in a garden in France

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Adventures in Bikeable Fashion

Donna Cooney

Beauty is a form of Genius

MERRY HAPPY

Louisa May Alcott is My Passion

Begun in 2010, this blog offers analysis and reflection by Susan Bailey on the life, works and legacy of Louisa May Alcott and her family. Susan is an active member and supporter of the Louisa May Alcott Society, the Fruitlands Museum and Louisa May Alcott's Orchard House.

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From a less than perfect life.. but I keep trying.

wildsherkin

Once upon an island...the musings and makings of a part-time islander

The clueless photographer

Pietro Mascolo - IZ4VVE

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Julie's garden ramblings ...

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Persevere

By Dan Sims

ALYAZYA

A little something for you.

Singersong Blog

An Aussie in County Clare

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Trail Blogs : Gear : Outdoor Life

Dartmoor Wild Camper

My wild camping adventures on Dartmoor.

Alex Awakens

The musings of an awakening soul

Fernwood Nursery & Gardens

Maine's Shadiest Nursery

avikingjourney

A nordic journey from the past to the present with Denmark's largest Viking war ship, the Sea Stallion.

JustUs Society

After all, who else is there... well except for aliens

aoifewww's Blog

This WordPress.com site is the bee's knees

idleramblings

Poems, ditties, lines, words, wanderings, ramblings, thoughts, memories, prompts,

140 characters is usually enough

naturekids

A place for kids to learn about the natural world

WordPress.com

WordPress.com is the best place for your personal blog or business site.

The woman on the Yellow Bicycle

The Art of enjoying life as I pedal my bike.

Off The Beaten Path

Random Peckings and Droppings of a Free-Range Chicken Mind.

The Campervan Gang

A Family's Journey To Become Campervan Heroes

ronovanwrites

Author, Poet, Blogger, Father, Reader And More

Murtagh's Meadow

Ramblings of an Irish ecologist and gardener

HAPPY DAYS

Steps To Happiness.

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Myths and Memoirs

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~ a blog that travels through time and space through the complex narrative we call “China” ~

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Glamping at its best!! private, own kitchen, own shower and loo, peaceful, wildlife, no kids!!

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≈ fictionalpaper / piccoloscissors / creativeglue ≈

Drawn In

Art • Nature • Exploration

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Yvonnecullen's Blog

Just another WordPress.com site

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Reflections on nature in a garden in France

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Adventures in Bikeable Fashion

Donna Cooney

Beauty is a form of Genius

MERRY HAPPY

Louisa May Alcott is My Passion

Begun in 2010, this blog offers analysis and reflection by Susan Bailey on the life, works and legacy of Louisa May Alcott and her family. Susan is an active member and supporter of the Louisa May Alcott Society, the Fruitlands Museum and Louisa May Alcott's Orchard House.

acoffeestainedlife.wordpress.com/

From a less than perfect life.. but I keep trying.

wildsherkin

Once upon an island...the musings and makings of a part-time islander

The clueless photographer

Pietro Mascolo - IZ4VVE

Frog Pond Farm

Julie's garden ramblings ...

Site Title

Persevere

By Dan Sims

ALYAZYA

A little something for you.

Singersong Blog

An Aussie in County Clare

An Oldie Outdoors

Trail Blogs : Gear : Outdoor Life

Dartmoor Wild Camper

My wild camping adventures on Dartmoor.

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