HEAVENLY, is a word that springs to mind as I walk along the bay-side path on New Year’s morning.

A friend on mine, Kevin Hanley who, appropriately, sports a long, white beard, told me that some weeks ago when he was walking his dogs in Reen Wood near Castletownshend, west Cork, he came upon four of the mysterious ‘fairy houses’ as reported in the Irish Examiner.

AS I eye the copious vittles being prepared for Christmas, I remember reading that our jaw muscles are much weaker than those of our ancestors.

WHEN I saw it, I found it hard to believe my eyes, an area the size of two football pitches covered in ice on Courtmacsherry Bay in west Cork.

AT Christmas, one finds time to walk and take the air and, perhaps, time to sit at home and read a book.

TEAL are such pretty little ducks — hardly as big as a wood pigeon — it’s sad to think of them stuffed inside a widgeon which is stuffed inside a mallard which is stuffed inside a goose, and the lot then put in the oven and roasted.

IN Galway recently, I looked out the window of a seafront apartment one morning and saw five glossy blackbirds perched on a leafless shrub.

IT would seem a small thing to be concerned about, with the country in the state it’s in, but a beautiful butterfly which has been peacefully sleeping in my workroom for two months has suddenly woken up and now, on this bright, frosty morning, is beating its wings against my window, wanting to get out.

THE inner section of Dun Aengus Dock, in Galway city centre, was often as packed as a giant sardine tin with sprat and mackerel during the last two weeks of October.

AS I set out, intent upon a 40-minute hike to shake the cobwebs off and reduce the corporation, the day seemed set fair – but then, to use, oppositely, the words of Dylan Thomas’s Poem in October, “The weather turned around/ It turned away from the blithe country ...” and the sky was sudden stained as blue as a bruised damson when a squall swept in off the sea.