BANGERS at daybreak: it was Chinese New Year in Bangkok.

ALONG the south west coast, this is the seal-pupping season.

NEW YEAR’S Resolution: walk more.

OUT on the channel, only 30 yards from the shore, three Great Northern divers are fishing.

AS I look out my workroom window the sun comes and goes in the yard.

MY visit to the National Aquarium of Ireland, the Galway Atlantaquaria, in October was enlightening and memorable.

MY brother told me that on the beaches near his apartment on the Atlantic coast of southern Spain, where we are staying, interesting shells could be found which are sometimes incorporated in jewellery.

TODAY, when we woke and opened the curtains, the skies over the Straits of Gibraltar were again peerless blue. The sea, azure and sparkling below them, broke on the sand in a white, crinoline frill.

WHEN, as children, my pals and I roamed the bogs, river banks and lake shores of Tipperary, Mayo and Donegal, we regularly came upon curlews’ nests and I’m afraid we may have sometimes filched an egg or two for our collections.

A FLURRY on the surface and a panicked splashing in the water only yards away from my feet as I walked along the beach on the first bright day for weeks: it was a shoal of big mullet caught unawares as they basked in the shallow water warmed by the sun.