Welcome to my seasonal procrastination piece, featuring some photos from a visit to County Mayo in August, followed by the usual listings.
A mural in the village of Ballindine, Co. Mayo
A wildlife mural commissioned by the Tidy Towns community group
Disused Ballindine railway (on track to reopen in the near future)
Shannon Foundry drain cover, my uncle’s shoes
The green and red of Mayo decking the streets of Ballindine after Mayo won the All-Ireland Gaelic Football final for the first time in 75 years
The local wildlife garden
An old farm building, remnants of another era
What I’m writing – recent blogs
I posted about a misty walk up onto the South Downs from Ditchling. A walk from 2024, which seems to be the year I am creatively re-living two years later.
On Fungi Friday I’ve posted a host of blogs about mushrooms seen but not heard on Dartmoor in autumn 2025. You can view all five of them via this link.
What I’m recording
I posted a summer fungi walk podcast which you can hear above, as well as via the usual podcast providers.
What I’m reading
Below is a selection of what I’ve managed to read cover to cover in recent months. Having visited Ireland again in late summer, I whipped through several of Irish novels. I am only just realising how these novels are all about the lives of children!
- Paddy Clarke HA HA HA by Roddy Doyle is a Booker Prize winning novel about a child’s life in Dublin. I did really enjoy the free-flowing style, which has no doubt massively influenced the next book I read (below). It reminded me of my childhood summers in the suburbs of Dublin, though I didn’t set anyone’s face on fire. Perhaps us millennials were the last British and Irish generation to have that freedom to climb walls and go where we wanted.
- Where are the Kings? by Donal Ryan is the story of a teenage boy’s life after the passing of his mother and the breakdown of his father’s health. It’s a lovely book, with the usual cutting moments softened by the energy and humanity of his characters. It’s also a study of mental illness and the way grief absolutely screws you up. I love Donal Ryan’s novels.
- Foster by Claire Keegan is a short, light novel that reminds me of some of the great American short story writers where no word is wasted. It’s a beautiful book. My mum re-read it after she finished it during our holiday. A little girl moves to live with a rural foster family for a short time. Highly recommended.
- The Time of the Child by Niall Williams is a more circumspect novel about a child that is dropped into the lives of a father and daughter, with a very different style to the previous authors. I debated with my mum (hiya) whether it was really worth reading or not, but I needed a bit of time off from the Ryan and Doyle to allow for the slower pace, and longer-form prose of the book. I did enjoy it actually.
What I’m hearing
Is there a new The War on Drugs album coming? It’s been five years since the last one, and the new song sounds really promising.
What I’m watching
Steve Rosenberg is a brilliant BBC journalist who’s based in Moscow(!). This interview with Dmitry Muratov is worth watching. Russia’s illegal war in Ukraine is not one that Putin can win, but the megalomaniac doesn’t care about the astonishing cost to either his own citizens, or the Ukrainian civilians he is bombing in their sleep. The same can be said of Israel’s government.
On a greener, lighter note this BBC Archive video about an Irish folklore collector is a nice watch.
Thanks for reading.
