LIKE polished silver, gold, blue-green, iridescent, they lie, headless on a platter, the wonderful bounty of the sea.

I WOULD love to put a stopwatch on a sandhopper, the half-inch long, pearly crustacean found foraging amongst the washed-up seaweed on our beaches. If one could harness the energy of the billions found amongst the sea wrack, one could fuel half the country’s JCBs.

FRIDAY, Saturday and Sunday, July 14 to 18, was the best weekend for horse-racing on the sandbanks or lazing on the beach for this or many a year.

WHEN we take the visiting grandchildren mackerel fishing in the summer, one of the highlights is always the big seals drawn up on the rock island at the mouth of the bay, or treading water in the sea around it, immersed up to their nostrils like Japanese men simmering in Tokyo public baths.

WEIRD WEATHER, last week. After seven or so weeks of almost constant sunshine and skies as peerless blue as Andalucia, suddenly the light was grey, the air was dead and a prickly, humid heat enveloped us.

Damien Enright marvels at this year’s fledglings.

THESE DAYS I fill the peanut feeder at the bird table only a quarter full. Otherwise, jackdaw gangs arrive and take turns hacking at the mesh, breaking the nuts into scraps which fall on the grass where team mates gobble them up.

WHILE we had heard daily reports of azure skies over Ireland, on our first morning home from holidays we woke to find dark clouds overhead, as if the gods themselves were troubled.

THE HEADY scent of the hawthorn hangs in the air like perfume in a bordello as we walk up the leafy lane.

WHILE the title of this page promises articles on the outdoors, these articles generally have to be written indoors. For almost the entire month of May 2006, it was certainly far too wet to sit under an umbrella on the lawn, with driving rain swamping the computer keyboard.