Feeding an appetite for the dramatic

I WILL miss life at the feeder when I travel abroad to hide away and finish a book about west Cork.

Nobody hangs out peanut feeders in the Canary Islands — the weather in La Gomera is kind throughout the winter. It would hardly make a human shiver, let alone a bird.

I remember over the years certain Februarys with downpours when the air cooled and one might don a light jacket but, as in Ireland, the sun often breaks through shortly after showers. Some similarity is not surprising — both are Atlantic islands, although La Gomera, almost circular and, at most, 32 km in diameter, rises to 1,470m, some 400m higher than Carrantuohill. When the sun breaks through after rain, one can literally see the water vapour rising over the fields, but before it has reached much higher than the potato haulms, it has already disappeared. Like here, the world is fresh and sparkling but, in Gomera, with its warmer sun, the air is full of the smell of the rich, volcanic soil.