In nature the only constant is change

THE advances in nature in Ireland during our 30-day absence are striking but it is that time of year when, almost overnight, buds open and the bush which, yesterday, was bare branches, suddenly wears a shawl of green.

As we drove home from the airport the car headlights picked out a host of lovely daffodils beneath some birch trees as we rounded the corner opposite Timoleague Abbey to drive down Courtmacsherry Bay. And, as we swept into our yard, the lights picked out a small bouquet of dwarf daffodils, this time underneath the beech trees across our stream.

Next day, I found a sprinkling of primroses in the ruins of Abbeymahon, on the bay shores. I have never seen them so late to bloom. In other years, I’ve recorded these ‘spring’ primroses flowering as early as mid-December.

The ravens on the cliffs, which I also watch in springtime, have built a fine, strong nest on a ledge over the sea, and one was sitting as I approached, indicating that there were eggs in the nest or, at least, that eggs were being laid. Be the weather fair or foul, eggs are laid in early March every year.

On the morning after our return, the sun on the south-facing fields was strong as I walked down between the horses, the sky peerless blue above me and the glare on the sea as bright as in La Gomera in the Canary Islands, but there was a cooling breeze, becoming cold as, later, I walked along the strand towards home.

I admired the white sand above the tide line, powdery and light. The sand on the natural beaches of the Canary Islands is, of course, black, and the grains are not as fine as the sand here, although fine enough for comfort.

For decades now, resorts in Tenerife and Gran Canaria have imported sand from Africa, Sahara sand, sometimes creamy-white, sometimes ochre. A pleasant beach was thus created in San Sebastian de la Gomera, the island ‘capital’, with a population of 2,500. The island population totals about 20,000.

As I walked, I left the strand and got out of the wind. So warm did I become that I walked the last half mile home in shirtsleeves, my coat slung over my shoulder. What with the wind on the beach and the sun in my face, I imagine I topped up my Canarian suntan.

Having a suntan, however, has never greatly preoccupied me, and less so than ever after meeting British long-term residents in La Gomera whom I remember as looking like old boots but have now taken to sun hats and sombreros and even then, like bats, will not stir out until the sun has gone down.

Their visible parts have assumed a sort-of wrinkled pallor and, clearly, they rue the days of prostration on the altar of Helios, the anvil of Sol, the brazier of Mithras — on the hot sands of La Gomera’s wild Playa Inglés.

I sympathise with them. While never a dedicated sun-worshipper, now that I’m past fifty, I notice that my skin isn’t as fresh and tightly-stretched as of yore.

Meanwhile, my son, at college in Galway tells me that on sunny days the two seals in the dock immediately opposite his apartment float on their backs, sunning their bellies, only yards from the public road. They are a tourist attraction. Cameras click and nature lovers coo. But will they be wrinkled seals when they grow old?

As we rode the bus over the mountains of Gomera to catch the boat to Tenerife for our flight home the weather changed and the hill-villages were another country, deep in mist, then lashed with rain. All was green, terraces upon terraces of lush grass and no animals to graze them. These terraces were abandoned after decades of drought. Now, they bloom again. In nature, the only constant is change.

Would that it were so in politics. This country is crying out for change in our fundamental systems as the dry terraces of La Gomera cried out for rain. Ireland, sucked dry by private interest facilitated by a self-serving government, must be re-irrigated by radical administrative changes so that it can again nurture our children’s hopes and dreams.