Byddi Lee's Blog, page 5

Walk This Way

I find myself writing condolences messages on a daily basis at the moment, and it’s been like this for the past few weeks. It makes my heart so heavy. People are suffering. A vaccine will not prevent the grieving for people who we have lost. But the vaccine will prevent further loss, and that’s a good thing. Is it crass to celebrate this life-saving technology in the face of all this death? I know from my own past experiences of grief that we humans are strange and complex creatures. I laughed at my father’s wake as many times as I cried. We embrace joy, hang on it, lean on it in our dark moments. I wonder if this is why those off-the-wall daft or uplifting moments in life now stand out so much.

Take the “I am not a cat” episode on YouTube this week – that had me crying with laughter and I watched and rewatched it over and over.

And there’s Jersulema dance – the first one I saw was this one – It made me smile so much.

But when the Irish Gardaí did it, I was overwhelmed with a suite of emotions that I can’t even put names to, but pride and joy were definitely two of them. Check out the dancing horses!

So it may seem like a strange question, but what has brought you joy during this lockdown?

For me, it’s been dawn walking. And I’ve posted about this before, but today I want to share the routes I do the most. Perhaps it doesn’t make for interesting reading if you are based elsewhere, (e.g. California) but maybe the photographs will transport you to a different (colder) place on this planet. In fact, if you live just 11 miles up the road, technically this walk will be out of reach too. Still, for those readers who are based in Armagh, I hope I present a new place to explore until the world opens up again.

So I’m going to describe two walks – the Stormy Hill Loop (1.8 miles) and the Rock Road – Ballyards – Stormy Hill Loop (4.35 miles). The second one is a longer version of the first, and so it depends on how fit and energetic you feel as to which route you might go for.

Both routes begin at the junction of the Rock Road and the Keady Road in Armagh. There’s a place to park here. On a cold winter’s morning, the mere sight of the Glaze & Roll Expresso Bar (or the coffee wagon as we call it) warms my heart.

But it’s the delicious coffee and hot chocolate that warms my hands and tummy on the frigid winter mornings.

The traybakes are to die for.

 So warm drink in hand, put Armagh City behind you, and turn right onto the Rock Road. Over the past few months, I’ve walked this road at dawn meeting the same cast of characters populating the route. It feels a little like a Mauve Binchy novel! I often see (and scratch the ears of) the same adorable doggies and chat with a retired postie who visits the beautiful little graveyard every day. At around 8 am there is the clip-clop of horses as a local horse trainer puts his magnificent charges through their paces.

Once you get past the built-up new developments (which are worth a wee wander if you want to stretch out your walking and have a nosy) the pavement ends, and you will have to walk on the road. Be careful of cars. Around you, the landscape opens up into sweeping fields of grass and rolling hills. A whitewashed wall on your right signals the turn off to Stormy Hill. The white house and farm buildings on the corner are known locally as the Red Barns.

Here you have two options:

Stormy Hill Loop (1.8miles)

For the shorter route, you can turn right up the hill. The steep gradient will get the heart pumping, but it’s the new builds on the Stormy Hill that will really take your breath away. Shove your envy to one side and just admire, or look right towards Armagh and take in the views of the Cathedral spires on the horizon – beautiful!

The lane ends at the Monaghan Road. The footpath here is broad, and although the road is fast, the walk back into town is now much safer with this established footpath than perhaps it was in years gone by. On either side are the flat green fields of the Callan River flood plain. In warmer weather, watch out for rabbits in these fields but at the moment you might get a glimpse of the current resident – Ba Ba Black Sheep – the cutest wee black lamb (in the background of this shot).

Follow the Monaghan Road back to where it meets the Keady Road at Mullan’s Spar and turn right to complete the loop to take you back to the Expresso Bar at the top of the Rock Road

2. Rock Road – Ballyards – Stormy Hill Loop (4.35 miles)

At the Red Barns, you can stay on the Rock Road for the longer (more picturesque) loop.  You’ll pass a little graveyard on the right. It is a peaceful place and worth a visit if you like that kind of thing. Strolling up the Rock Road the gradient steepens, and you come to a turn off on the right-hand side. You’ll see two gates and three pillars. This is where you turn right off the Rock Road. It’s a charming wee lane that doesn’t seem to have a name on the maps. Two big hills, one after the other gets the heart rate going. The stone bridge in the hollow between them is a lovely spot to rest, and take in the scenery of the Butterwater River. You might even see the grey heron on his fishing spot, and the area is also popular with Little Egrets. Overhead you might see a Common Buzzard circling as it hunts for prey. The fields are home to sheep, and the lambs are already appearing.

At other times of the year, you might see horses and even a foal.

At the top of the second steep hill is a chicken farm. When you get this far, you can rest assured that it’s downhill and flat for the next couple of miles (until you get to the last hill – Stormy Hill). At the crossroads turn right and follow the Callan River, crossing over it on a nicely restored stone bridge damaged last autumn by a car that took the curve too quickly!

The Callan River winds along the next stretch and accompanies you into the cute village of Milford.

Stay on the same road until it takes you to the busy Monaghan Road. Turn right, back in towards Armagh on the wide footpath, crossing once more over the Callan River on the blue-railing bridge. You might see horses in the field to your right. The next turn on the right is the Stormy hill. If you have had enough hills, you can stay on the Monaghan Road, turning right at the Keady road to return to the start. Or you can haul yourself up over the Stormy hill for that last vista of Armagh City before joining the Rock Road again at the Red Barns and turning left back to the Keady Road.

Either way, you’ll have earned your treat from the Expresso Bar for sure.

If you’re reading this and you’re from Armagh, please drop a line in the comments (either here or on Social Media) and let me know what you favourite walking route is around the city.

Take care and stay safe

Byddi Lee

Flower Power

The first few days of February have been dreary, to say the least. Last Monday, the first day of February, was also traditionally the first day of spring (the weather did not get the memo!) I took a notion to spruce up my window boxes. I have a yearning for daffodils – my father’s favourite flowers. He planted them along the country lane outside our old house. It was the only thing he ever really planted, I think. When he died of cancer in April 2008, daffodils were a golden riot of blossom, not just on the lane but all over Armagh. Each year when they flower, I feel like he is close by, and never more so than this year.

Daffodils are a symbol of rebirth and new beginnings – so apt for the times we are in. I also wanted to celebrate my mum’s vaccination day this week which was even more poignant, falling as it did on my father’s birthday. It felt like a little message from him in these dark days.

I needed a quick planting fix for my empty window boxes. Perhaps I should have planted the bulbs back in the autumn. Still, they’d not be far enough along for this week’s daffy-craving, so I decided to source forced bulbs, ones that were on the brink of blossom and make an instant display.

The problem – all the garden centres are closed due to covid restrictions. A depressing drive through a shuttered Armagh City centre, in the rain, (of course!) told the sorry tale of more businesses than just the garden centres and flower shops being closed. It was my first drive through town since before Christmas, and it left me sad and anxious.

But not to be thwarted in my quest to find daffodils, I called into my local supermarket, McAnerneys, so see if they had any daffodils in pots. This shop provided the plants for my summer window boxes during the first lockdown, so it was worth trying. Sure enough, there were a couple of pots of daffodils and some primulas.

Primroses are members of the primula family. I tend to call the non-wild varieties, with huge petals in different colours, primulas. The paler yellow ones under hedgerows in the countryside are primroses to me.

There was only a couple of each left, and I wasn’t sure how the pricing compared to buying them in a garden centre, but I was desperate. It still wasn’t enough to fill my planters though. So I stopped at the corner shop (Mullan’s at the Monaghan Road) and was delighted to discover they had more pots of daffodils. And some on the brink of blooming too!

So I brought it all home, and in less than half an hour I had put together two planters – a little more sparse than I’d usually plant up, but I’m looking forward to them filling in with blooming loveliness.

Spring is on the brink… hang in there.

Byddi Lee

Your Palace or Mine?

Your Palace or Mine?

You know that bit in Braveheart where Mel Gibson goes, ‘Hold, hold, hold…’ and the other army is charging towards them? The tension is building. You hardly bear it until eventually, Mel roars, ‘Now’?

Well, that’s where we’re at in this pandemic malarkey – still at the ‘Hold’ but knowing the ‘Now’ is coming soon.

It feels like we will never get to the ‘Now’ though doesn’t it?

Like in the way that you have that last big push before the exams and you just can’t imagine them being over, the pressure released and that – oh my God – that post-exam freedom.

It feels like those weeks coming up to a holiday when everything seems to be harder and take longer in work. You know that if it can go wrong, this is when it will go wrong.

Or like when you’re doing up your house and your living arrangements are topsy-turvey. There’s dust in everything you own, even your pyjamas, and the contractor keeps extending the finish date, and you can’t imagine life without grit in your cornflakes.

Isn’t it like that right now?

Except there’s more at stake, so many lives on the brink, not to mention those that have been lost, and if, so far, you’ve managed to avoid the virus, you wonder how much longer can you hold out. 

During January I’ve posted a dawn photo every day (Monday to Friday – but sometimes at weekends too) on Instagram. ‘Dawn’ evolved into a theme by accident in an attempt to keep me hopeful and to perhaps even inspire hope in others. It’s a small thing, but one I hope lifted spirits. Indeed, I was delighted to get lots of positive feedback. If it brightens just one person’s day, then I feel it’s worth doing. I don’t post pictures of people, (and certainly none of me pouting – perish the thought!) and very few posts about books (I need a break from that!) I just post my view of the world through the camera lenses available to me. The photos are eye-catching (perhaps not the best technical quality), and I treat it like a gallery of my ‘artsy’ shots. I shared some of the photos across to Facebook and Twitter, but Instagram is my main photo ‘gallery’.

In February, I plan to follow the theme of ‘spring’ so if you fancy following me on Instagram you are very welcome to – https://www.instagram.com/byddilee

Photography helps me escape, to see the familiar from a different perspective. What if we could step through an imaginary portal and look at home at though we were tourists?

During my dawns walks one snowy morning, I was wandering through the Palace Demesne in Armagh. I took a little path I don’t often take because it’s usually a bit too muddy, but with the ground being frozen, I could explore further.

I emerged into an area that I could have sworn I’d never before been in it was so changed by the snow – a Stray Sod moment to be sure. The landscape slowly morphed back into the place I recognized, but before that happened, there was a lovely moment of being able to pretend that I was away somewhere visiting another place.

Where would you go – within 10 miles of your home – and pretend to be a tourist?

I choose the Palace Demesne in Armagh. (Quick FYI – ‘Demesne’ is pronounced the same way as the word ‘domain.’)

The Palace was built by Archbishop Robinson around the 1770s (I couldn’t find an exact date but there was a reference to archbishops living there from 1770 to 1975.) I’ve been lucky to have book launches here for March to November and The Bramley hosted by the wonderful Lord Mayors at the time Cathy Rafferty and Julie Flaherty respectively.

In recent years the grounds have been opened to the public.

You can even take a stroll through the herb gardens at the back of the Palace. It’s a little empty right now with only the hardest of flowers blossoming like this little heather.

It is a beautiful place for walking, especially now with lockdown. A word of caution, though, it can be a bit crowded, but it was empty at dawn.

I took the one above and below back in October 2017 the morning before Hurricane Ophelia arrived hence the broody sky!

Within the grounds of the Palace Demesne are the ruins of a Franciscan Friary which dates back to 1263AD. The Franciscans played an important part in the city’s religious life for nearly three hundred years until 1542 when Henry VIII closed them all down without furlough!

The buildings fell into ruin but are still very beautiful and are a great subject for photographs. You can get very creative!

The public can wander through the gardens and grounds now, and it’s lovely that it is available to the people especially at this time. In the same way that the Parisians may promenade around the Palace and grounds in Versailles, we in Armagh have a mini version of our own Palace and grounds!

Byddi Lee

Passing Oh Dark Hundred

Dawn and sunrise are two different things. Dawn is when we see the first rays of the sun as it rises towards the horizon.

Sunrise is when the top of the sun reaches the horizon, that moment when we can see the sun. The new day is delivered.

But Dawn is the promise of that which is yet to come—a contract of a new day. Dawn was my father’s favourite time of the day. In April 2008, he died just before dawn. He held out all through the long dark night and then gently left us as light broke the darkness. I comfort myself with the belief that he timed it on purpose so we’d have the dawn to give us strength in those first hours when full comprehension of our loss shimmered out of reach.

Dawn gave us hope – it still does.

I think of this now, as my friends mourn their own loved ones lost in this pandemic.

No amount of hope will blunt their pain.

Hope will not bring someone back to life.

Hope will not cure the incurable.

Hope will not stop me missing my dad.

We have to own that pain, live that heartache, possess that hurt without letting it possess us.

And to accomplish that we have to knuckle down in the darkest hour and look towards the dawn.

Indeed this week there has been much talk of dawn and hope and getting past the darkest hour. There were many moments in US Presidential Inauguration on Wednesday 21st January 2021 that took my breath away, but my favourite was when President Biden quoted the bible saying, “Weeping may endure for the night, but joy cometh in the morning.”

Weeping is valuable too, especially in our darkest hour.

The US military has a nickname for this time – Oh Dark Hundred. It is the time furthest from the touch of the last beams of sunset, the bleakest, darkest moment of the cycle of night and day. But take heart, because in the very next moment after Oh Dark Hundred is first light – dawn – delivering hope we can cling to, keeping us afloat until sunrise.

But dawn is not sunrise – there is still work to do. I say this as friends and family battle with the virus, their health eroded and recovery taking goodness knows how long. The numbers of those still ill and in a precarious state here and around the world are terrifying. It is easy to feel like we are stuck at Oh Dark Hundred. It is okay not to feel optimistic. Despair is not a failure even if it feels like it is with so many calling upon us to be hopeful. Positivity is not always the answer. Maybe while we are at the darkest time we have yet seen in this pandemic, it is a moment to pause and give a nod to our collective sorrow. Perhaps this is the purpose of Oh Dark Hundred. Perhaps it is a time to accept, to sit alone in the darkness and acknowledge what we are feeling, to not run from it, but stand our ground and face it for even the briefest of moments – for some pain cannot be borne for any longer. Perhaps Oh Dark Hundred is the time to stare despair down and say, ‘I see you, I know you, and I will move past you.’

But the dawn comes…

The dawn is a snowdrop in January

The dawn is my father’s laugher in my nephew’s voice

The dawn is your mother’s smile flitting across your daughter’s face 

The dawn is a 22-year-old poet with whose wise words make your heart swell with joy

The dawn is an old man quoting Irish poets

The dawn is two successful women sharing a wordless moment of solidarity

The dawn is a healthcare worker getting some rest

The dawn is a homeschooling break with tea and a biscuit

The dawn is a syringe with a dose of vaccine, with your name on it

The dawn is a job application, a grant application

The dawn is planning a family meal, a gathering, a reunion

The dawn is a travel brochure, a deposit, a date in your diary

The dawn always arrives, and “Joy cometh with the morning.”

I recommend you read the full transcript of President Biden’s speech even if you are not interested in American politics. Here’s a link to it.

And the poem ‘The Hill, We Climb’ by Amanda Gorman is stunning – here’s a link to that – it will do your heart good.

In the meantime, I wish you healing and hope you find joy in the tiny things in life.

Byddi Lee

Away With the Birds

Although Lockdown has allowed many of us to reconnect with nature, I’ve always thought of myself as pretty connected already – being a gardener and having a degree in Environmental Biology. But I hold up my hand to being pretty rubbish at bird identification.

I mean, I can tell a robin from a swan even if our Health Minster has tried to confuse me on that score (being called Robin Swan!) I’d know an ostrich from a chicken too, I guess, but the finer nuances of the tiny birds in the back garden and hedgerows often have me stumped… But with being pretty much confined to barracks, I like everyone else, have had to sit it out and let nature come to me.

This year I invested in a feeding station for my feather garden, and it’s been such a joy. We’ve quite the parade most days, so much so that I have tried to photograph every visitor at least once. The birds seem to know when I lift the camera, and they scarper! My Husband thinks that it’s because the camera sends out some kind of light for focusing that scares them. I think they’re just being mean! So it was harder to get good, clear shots in sharp focus that you might think – so apologies for the blurred ones. My dreams of working as a wildlife photographer will never be realized at this rate! However, I was rewarded with being better at identifying the birds and discovering a few new (to me) species and a few very special visitors too.

There are plenty of starlings, of course. These guys mob the feeding station at times and remind me of unruly teenagers. We’ve nicknamed them “The Hooligans” of the garden. But they need to be fed too so I don’t mind – there’s plenty to go around, and they can’t access all the feeders I use, so there’s some left for the wee birds too. They are quite fashionable really with their speckles and what looks like white piping on their wings. I’ve grown kind of fond of their bad-mannered presence. They do make me laugh and add a bit of drama to proceedings.

We have two robins in our garden, and even though I’ve seen them both at the same time, I’ve not had the camera handy. These guys don’t tend to feed directly from the feeders but vie with the blackbirds and finches for the food that falls below.

The blackbird hops about below and seems to follow the robins around. I wonder if he is confused about his identity?

The song thrush is very shy and seems to look on from the edge of the feeding area.

The blue tit is one of my personal favourites – he’s so vibrant and tiny, yet holds his own with his big cousins the great tit.

We have great tits in abundance. I’ve read that for every one you see at your feeder there are five in the hedge. I’ve seen as many as five at a time, translating into a significant population of great tits here.

We also have coal tits. Before I looked closely at them, I assumed they were great tits, but you can see the difference when you have them side by side at a feeder. The coal tit is smaller, its feathers on its chest dull grey compared to the great tits vibrant yellow chest bisected by a black line from chin to belly that resembles a tie! Coal tits also have a white stripe up the back of its head.

The great tit has a solid black head and greenish wings/black.

My Husband was confused by the chaffinches and kept referring to them as robins until I explained that the chaffinches are more pink while the robins are more orange-red. The chaffinches’ pinkness covers their belly, but robins only have a red breast and not a red belly.

We also get woodpigeons, but they gave up on the feeder, not being agile enough to take advantage of it.

Their cousins, the collared doves, are in the same pickle. I’ve witnessed these guys falling off the feeding station trying – they’re so dopey! But I did get this lovely shot of a collared dove (see his black collar?)

We have sparrows, male and female. (I think – like, none of this is gospel… there’s no swans nor ostriches!)

And pied wagtails – I often see these guys on the main road where it crosses the river but not usually in the garden. Still, I think the cold snap left them a little desperate. There are fewer insects, and worms burrow deeper when the birds need more energy from their food than ever to stay warm.

Could the one below be a greenfinch? It a poor shot and somewhat drab but a female greenfinch perhaps?

There was one that I couldn’t identify even with the RSPB charts – it didn’t seem to match anything, but I’ll come back to this…

But it was a day of big excitement when the goldfinches arrived! There are two of them, maybe male and female but I can’t tell them apart despite pouring over photos and articles. My birds just will not cooperate and pose so I can determine if there is enough red and in the correct shape on the faces.

Here’s a closer look at one goldfinch.

In this shot I’d be inclined to say is a different bird but different sex?

And then this week, I saw a new bird in among the starlings, one with a distinct black cap and a grey body.

The one I hadn’t been able to identify earlier in the week also has a cap – but it was a dull reddish-brown.

I looked it up on the RSBP bird chart, but the blackcap drawing has too much white on it, and the illustration of the female blackcap had a red cap! But when I searched google images, the photos for blackcaps matched mine! I have a male and a female blackcap in my winter garden, which is considered unusual because they are supposed to migrate for the winter. However, in recent years this has been changing (climate change undoubtedly), and now many are overwintering here. Finding them my garden and identifying them made me ridiculously happy! You gotta take the win these days I suppose!

Then there are the unwelcome visitors too – this cheeky monster showed up. We had to chase him. It sounds cruel but grey squirrels push out our native red squirrels, and they wreck the vegetable garden. I don’t want to be feeding them during the winter so they have even more babies come spring.

Even with the odd squirrel insurrection, I’d really recommend setting up some kind of feeding station in your garden to watch the birds. The RSPB website has lots of useful information (if you can forgive their unhelpful drawing of blackcaps!) A set of binoculars comes in handy too. It can be as expensive an endeavour as you choose it to be. I spent about £40 on the feeding station – it’s supplying the seeds that gets expensive. The market at the Shambles in Armagh is excellent for seeds, especially when your mother buys them for you by the carrier bag load!

On the weekend of the 29th January  2021, the RSPB is having the Big Garden Birdwatch . You record which birds visit your garden for an hour on a given day. You only count what shows up on that day, so I hope my rockstars – the blackcaps and goldfinches turn up otherwise I can’t count them. (It’s a science thing!) (Oh and the female blackcap is visiting as I type!)

Finally, I have this shot of these two look somewhat grumpy – the picture isn’t good enough to accurately tell what they are and they are all puffed up against the cold…but they are cute, don’t ya think? And so good at social distancing!

Toggling between these two pictures is fun – the birds are looking out for one another!

Even the cute blue tit can be intimidating when he’s staring straight at you!

Here are some wonderful ideas for connecting to nature.

I hope you find some solace in the simple things during these difficult times. Stay safe and be well.

Byddi Lee

Lockdown Lemonade

When the world gives you lockdown, you don’t have much choice other than to make the best of it. Combined with the New Year resolutions to get fit, sunrise at 8.45 am and hard frost, and it’s a pretty potent combination.

Sunrise is my favourite time of the day, especially when it’s so late that you can have a good night’s sleep before having to face the dawn. It’s one of the major (few) perks in winter to living so far north. Since September, I’ve been going for a dawn walk. It began as a challenge for that month to get my body-clock into shape after the first lockdown, late nights binge-watching TV and summer holidays. Two weeks in and I was addicted to the dawn.

Even rainy days, which were surprisingly few, didn’t put me off. I take the weekends off and have a lie-in. The worst weather always seemed to fall on Saturdays. I still enjoy snuggling down in bed and listening to the rain outside.

As autumn trundled into winter, I adjusted my walking time according to the sunrise. This week, I’m doorstepping at 8.15 am so that I’m out in the fields to meet the first rays around 8.45. On clear days there’s still plenty of light in the half-hour of twilight before dawn. Yesterday morning with a skiff of snow and some fog, it was a little darker.

The photos have been effortlessly spectacular with the frost and snow.

There’s a flooded patch in one of the fields that that has turned to solid ice. I call it the secret ice rink. It would probably be a muddy eight to ten inches at its deepest point, but the ice is so thick right now, I can walk all the way across. Even so, there’s a substantial adrenalin rush when the ice creaks beneath my feet.

With yesterday’s snow, the secret ick rink was less slippery and perfect for making snow angels.

Frost and snow change the landscape, so you feel like you are viewing somewhere new, somewhere different. It’s natures gift to help me not feel so locked down, as if I’m travelling to a new place each day on my morning ramble, giving me renewed connections to nature. Aren’t these rabbit’s tracks so cute? You can just picture the little guy hopping about…

Another thing I did this past week to make me feel less locked down was to change the position of my bedroom furniture. I turned the bed 90 degrees so that it was against another wall. It really worked! The whole room looked so different, we felt like were in a hotel for the night. I even had that first-night-bad-sleep I get at the beginning of holidays. With my side of the bed so much closer to the window, I was sure I could feel a draft, and so the next day we switched everything back and ‘came home’ again. We’ve also changed the positions where we sit at the dinner table… but that was because I needed space to do a jigsaw this week

Perhaps I should turn some of my pictures into jigsaws!

I may have taken down my Christmas decorations this week (apart from the solar lights on the fruit trees outside) but nature is still in Christmas decor mode.

And frozen blossoms add a splash of colour to the pastel landscape.

To help alleviate my lockdown, I’ve tuned in to Yoga with Adriene. I like her quick daily 30-day-challenges, and the current one is themed ‘Breath’ – most apt at a time when so many are fighting for theirs.

So we may have left 2020 behind, but we are still suffering from its hangover as events this week have demonstrated. But take heart, the dawn always comes and brings us a brand new day. What we do with it is up to us, lockdown or not.

Stay safe.

Byddi Lee

Goodbye 2020, Happy New Year 2021

I’ve been lazy of late… lazy with my photography, reverting to using the camera phone and the tweaking software on Instagram rather than going all out with the “big camera” and downloading it to the desktop to tweak with much better software.

I’ve also been lazy with my blogging – the once a week post slipped to once a month, and then to just every so often… I had fallen into this sense of who wants or needs to hear what I have to say? I don’t mean this in a “poor me” sense, but at least when I lived abroad, I was documenting the life that was different, or at least different to what I considered as my factory setting of life in Armagh. By that, I don’t mean that life in Armagh is not worth documenting. It is, but I realised that when I lived abroad and wrote my blog I usually felt that I was writing letters home, to my sister, and now we share the same living experience and what can I tell her that is fresh and interesting?

Then there’s the time it takes to write the blog… was it worth spending so much time on something that a dozen people might read. I had a look at my traffic to the blog and was pleasantly surprised…okay so it’s more that I realised. Maybe there is an audience out there. But what really swung it was the fact that I love going back through the years and reading my posts myself! It’s a form of journaling. Some posts are markers for big events in my life I was happy to share. Other more personal events perhaps not shared are tucked between the lines of text where I remember things like what I did the weekend after I miscarried my only pregnancy ten years ago…that event always carried in my heart.

So I have my answer – my blog is my journal. If people don’t feel like reading it, that’s no problem. If they do even better. As a writer, I’m compelled to share my thoughts with the world – and some I don’t – it’s up to me.

So my New Years resolution is the resurrection of my blog posting… starting now… (and intending to post every Friday of 2021.)

Santa brought me a snazzy new bird feeding station this year and it’s brought my feather garden to life big time. A new visitor to the garden prompted me to get the “big camera” out again. It’s the first time I’ve seen a goldfinch at the feeders, and I loved that our regular bluetit was okay with sharing a table. No social distancing here!

You’ll notice the snow on top – I was up at before dawn today pulling my sleep-stunned husband to the window to see the full moon over the snowy garden. I was too busy pulling on my snow boots and ski jacket to take pictures, but even half asleep (he is NOT a morning person) he managed to take this great shot.

2020 was a tough and weird year for all of us. Every year, I like to pick out one thing of note for each month. When we’ve hosted NYE parties, I’ve put a wall-sized annual planner on the wall and invited guests to add their own events. It’s always fun to review the positive things the past year has brought, but this year, I reckoned it would be challenging. So I’ve chosen to ignore the ‘C’ word and write out my own calendar…

Highlights of 2020

January – Ski trip to Bulgaria

February – Flash Fiction Armagh Saturday Night at the Museum

March – Rejuvenation Book One published by Castrum Press

April – Women Aloud NI Facebook Live Festival

May – The Bramley Volume Two published

June – Zoomeo & Juliet rehearsals, performed live on Zoom by Armagh Theater Group at the beginning of July

July – Rejuvenation Book Two published by Castrum Press

August – Trip to Killarney and West Cork

September – Flash Fiction in the Orchard 2020

October – Rejuvenation Book Three published by Castrum Press

November – Social Bubble, Toil & Trouble performed live on Zoom by Armagh Theatre Group

December – Christmas Diner with My Mummy

In 2021, I imagine I’ll be travelling further afield and hopefully have much more to write about so 2021 here we come…

Byddi Lee

A Paid-up Member of the Living Poets Society!

If truth be told, I’m not a poet. All them odes to Daffodils and sonnets in fourth and fifth year at school put me off. I didn’t like Heaney’s “Digging” – maybe it was too familiar. I don’t know why, but it just didn’t do it for me. I know I could be excommunicated from the Irish literary community for admitting that. Though maybe I can save myself if I quickly add that I did like Yeats a wee bit, that something about ‘the bee-loud glade’ spoke to me and made me also want to ‘arise and go now…’

No, I was never really into poetry. I consider myself a storyteller, not a contemplator, and for me, poetry is too… Well, ya have to be really good at poetry to get away with telling a story. Come to think of it, I did like Pam Ayres when I was young. And I often imagine myself ‘stopping by woods on a snowy evening’ and hearing harness bells shaking so perhaps Robert Frost wasn’t so bad either. Maybe there was hope for this Poetic Philistine!

I sidle into appreciating poetry when I hear humorous poetry – like the kind of wry observations of life served up by David Braziel, and the craic dished out by Trish Bennet, and the belly laughs that Malachi Kelly can deliver at his Open Mic Night (Oh how I long to be squished into the Abbey Lane Theatre, drinking white wine and snacking nibbles as I listen to the acts.)

In fairness, the stuff that makes me cry appeals too, like the reminiscing of a passed parent gently told by Karen Mooney or the heartbreaking lens on the dark moments in life provided by Cathy Carson.

All told, I suppose I was on the slippery slope, but Gaynor Kane’s poetry cemented the deal. This time last year, Hedgehog Press published her book Memory Forest, and I enjoyed reading all the ways we can celebrate life and death. For me (and remember I’m not an expert and often pick up the poetry message wrong) this book was a kaleidoscope of the ways our days can trundle to a halt. It makes me think about life much more carefully, about living it much more vigorously, which is a shame because… cue 2020 and lockdown!

But Gaynor Kane has more poetry love to give in her new book “Venus in Pink Marble”. I began reading this with the intention that I’d commit to reading one poem a day. Full disclosure here – She’s my friend, I love her, and I felt I owed it to her to read her book because she reads mine and is so supportive of my writing. I can admit that I began reading poetry out of loyalty…to begin with…

But then her words caught hold and wouldn’t let go…

Like a newly lit fire, the flames licked urgently through dry kindling…

One poem a day, over breakfast, became two, three, four a day until I had to take myself in hand and go back to savouring the poems individually again. I wanted to think about each one all day and really let it sink in. In the first section, each poem was a snippet of history punching home a satisfying “a-ha” moment. There were so many that struck me, like the one with the rat causing a blackout in Belfast that makes me want to write a short screenplay about it.

Section Two – entitled ‘A Letter to Me” was particularly emotive. The poems often left me probing inward to identify what I was feeling. The language, precise yet spectacularly descriptive, drew an awareness from me as if it were a yoga for the mind. I challenge anyone to read Recipe For the Scent of You without feeling a prickle of nostalgic tears for the memory of a lost elder.

In section Three, there were poems like Herd that transported me back in time to when we had our own lawn invasions of ‘sauntering’ cattle – how else do cattle walk? And it’s this eye for detail that I love about Gaynor’s poetry, this knack she has of hanging words on something to snap it to attention in my mind’s eye.

The very next poem, I Am Not Prepared, I brought me back to when I was training for the Alcatraz swim, gifting me with a flood of wonderful memories of how fun that was, giving me a mental visit with the friends I shared that fun with.

Through Gaynor Kane’s poetry, the scales fell from my eyes. This poetry is powerful stuff all right!

Reading “Venus in Pink Marble” brings me a sense of tenure as a writer. I’m still more of a storyteller than a contemplator, but my writing is richer for reading Gaynor Kane’s poetry in the same way that my life is richer with her friendship.

And it doesn’t end there. Gaynor Kane has teamed up with Karen Mooney and released a pamphlet of their poems written during lockdown called ‘Penned In’ which walks us through the emotions carried by many in during the pandemic. This clever title is turned on its head as you read poems that give us permission to set our hearts and minds free to experience and feel what we need to with abandon.

All proceeds from the cracking wee collection that is ‘Penned In’ goes to Action Cancer. So I would say, give it a go, you’ve nothing to lose.

Byddi Lee

Playtime

It’s the night before Dress Rehearsal and all through the house, not a creature is stirring…

I’m in Zoom as an audience member, watching only. The first actor to arrive probably doesn’t know I can see her. She takes a couple of deep breaths. It’s the first time I’ve seen her showing nerves. The others join in quick succession on the dot of 7.30 pm. There are smiles, greeting, kisses blown and omg such a sense of affection between them. They are totally amazing. My heart swells with love for these guys – Malachi and Tim will have a field day slagging me about this post, and I love them for that too!

These actors are so dedicated.

‘I have five layers on me,’ says one. The costume changes are challenging but for most of them the least of their worries. They share their horror stories of getting stuck and unable to turn their screens on, off, picture freezes, mics underperforming. Someone asks if his lighting is okay. ‘How about now?’ The glare causes a chorus of, ‘No, not that one.’ He fixes it.

The producer comes on and admits she’d hit the wrong button and was sitting in a zoom meeting by herself wondering where everyone was.

This time last year we’d have had absolutely no concept of that. What amazes me is how everyone has wholeheartedly risen to this challenge. This time last year most of us had no idea of what an R-number was, and the idea of wearing a mask into a shop, let alone a bank, was completely unheard of… but that was then, and this is now… These actors have taken their isolation by the throat and given it one hell of a shake.

Rehearsals begin. It’s like someone has flicked a switch. They seem to cast their nerves to one side. The previous cheery personalities pull on the masks of fractious competitors snarling at one another. Their true selves are hidden behind their screen characters. I’m bewitched by their magic, thrilled to have had a small part in creating this as I watch the producer guide them gently but firmly through tweaks and tricky bits. She has such a lovely way with people, always mindful of feelings, patient and calm in the face of possible internet disasters, and always encouraging and upbeat. I’ve no doubt this dynamic atmosphere starts with her…

They are working so hard, repeating and redoing bits until they have it perfect – with such great humour! Giggles abound as they practice their wardrobe changes for the first time. The fluffed lines and gaffs are adorably hilarious, but I have complete faith; it will be all right on the night. I want to hug them all! And maybe I just will – once we get vaccinated! Hopefully, they won’t be too horrified at the prospect.

Armagh Theatre Group Zooming in ‘Social Bubbles’

If success were measured by the amount of fun you have with a project then I declare Armagh Theatre Group’s  Zoom-plays a triumph even before the second one, ‘Social Bubble, Toil & Trouble’ goes out live on 19th, 20th and 21st November 2020.

The writers of the play, namely Malachi Kelly, Tim Hanna and myself, are not a necessary component of rehearsals, but the producer, Margery Quinn lets us sit in on the Zoom rehearsals, muted with our camera off – proverbial flies on the wall. It’s a new way to do theatre in these ‘COVID times’ with everyone at home but connecting through their laptops, tablets and phones. I’ve got so used to it, I feel like I have Armagh Theatre Group in my living room a couple of times a week, and the craic is ninety.

While we watch the cast falling about laughing after a goofed up line, Malachi texts me – ‘They’re having far too much fun!’

I pick up my phone, too lazy to text back, and he answers on the first ring. We joke about sacking them for enjoying themselves too much – the biggest laugh is that we haven’t got that reach! But we both agree that even if no-one watches our play, we’d have accomplished something, that watching eight people having a blast in times like this was worth the effort of writing the play in the first place.

One of the actors, Felim Rafferty, who plays Dan, shares his experience of the new Zoom regime that Armagh Theatre Group has undertaken:

Zooooooooming!

By Felim Rafferty

My first thought, this will be too fast for me, both physically and technologically. Besides, why on earth introduce a speeding concept at a time of global slowdown?

Need not have worried, of course. Especially after employing the services of the baby zoomers generation who easily and with ill-disguised condescension soon had me up and running, but at my own pace.

Hey, this was going to be a dawdle after all……………………….hold on, what do you mean I have to learn the lines, surely I can just read it can’t I? Well no actually you will have to commit to memory, this is not a rehearsed reading darling. Remember the 3 Ps, Perseverance, Punctuality and Punctiliousness.

So, I have to learn lines whilst paying attention to taking myself in and out, making sure I am not muted or alternatively a disembodied voice, should I look straight into the camera or at my fellow participants??

AND by the way, we are going out live. Not recorded, no luxury of another “take”, it has to be right on the money on the night. No pressure. I always considered myself to be game for a challenge, was this maybe a step too far?

Seriously though the sense of togetherness nurtured by this fellowship of the acting community had an almost tangible quality even in the virtual world of zoom. When we look back at our achievement in the face of unprecedented and ongoing adversity, we can be proud of that thespian spirit that pervades our very being. An indomitable determination to turn calamity into success by simply keeping going, not allowing resolve to be dimmed, finding and embracing a novel medium in order to breathe new life into the world of the arts.

Methinks, perchance, my initial fear of Zoom was Much Ado About Nothing.

We were also delighted when BBC Radio Ulster picked up the unique nature of the Armagh Theatre Group’s new production, and it’s global reach, last night for Evening Extra. Have a listen – we’re on at 1 hour 54 minutes into the show.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m000nsh4

As for having nobody watch the show – our fears are unfounded. Tickets are already selling well and are available online…

If you wish to book a place for Thursday 19th November go to
https://tinyurl.com/SocialBubbleNov19
If you wish to book a place for Friday 20th November go to
https://tinyurl.com/SocialBubbleNov20
If you wish to book a place for Saturday 21st November go to
https://tinyurl.com/SocialBubbleNov21

For more information check out the Armagh Theatre Group website where I pinched this quote (from Tim Hanna, I think) because it made me chuckle and links nicely to Zoomeo on YouTube:-

“Finally, for those of you who missed Zoomeo & Juliet during July (can’t believe there are many), we have posted one of the live performances on YouTube which you can watch ABSOLUTELY FREE!! (the treasurer has fainted…)”

Byddi Lee