I’M just back from a short break in the Dutch town of Eindhoven.

MY birthday is on Jul 21 and one of the minor ways in which it is celebrated is that I dig the first new potatoes from the garden.

I WAS sitting in the kitchen the other evening when I heard a scrabbling sound coming from a table lamp in the corner.

THE spindle is one of my favourite native trees, though I admit that when it grows in the wild it’s often more of a shrub than a tree.

THE dark European honey bee was likely a wild native insect in Ireland, but wild and feral bees have become extinct here in the past 20 years.

I HAVE a small piece of land.

I HAVE had a couple of interesting emails from readers over the past few days.

THERE are not as many books about birds in Ireland as there are about birds in Britain.

I WAS working in the vegetable garden — actually that’s not strictly correct, I was taking it easy on a garden seat and admiring the work I’d done.

A READER who is very fond of her cats has contacted me because she has spotted a fox in the garden and is worried it might kill the cats.