With nature's help I've created my garden!

Mayo County Council gave me two triangles in which to build my garden: one of concrete for the container garden and hanging out my laundry; the other a triangle of compacted muddy soil, sown with tenacious grass seed combined with builder’s rubble.

Nothing in my garden is sheltered from the south-westerly wind, which pummels straight off the hills at the back. Every gardener has challenges, and one of mine was to find things that will grow in extremely windy conditions.

I’ll happily take that wind every day of the week, as it comes from the open pasture and hills out the back, which allows me to watch horses while I sit on my exercise bike, or enjoy the sight of cows munching in the distance as I sit with my breakfast.

The other challenges are having only one good leg and 1.5 dodgy lungs, combined with the fact that my entire plot is on top of an absolutely massive bramble root system. My neighbour told me when I moved in that over the 40 years he’s lived next door, he’d seen many try to build a garden on this patch; all  failed.

The container garden has been a treat. Sheltered from view I sit and enjoy the colours in peace and privacy. I never sit for long, ‘cos I’m off up and deadheading this, tying up that, studying the other and getting mud on my fingers every day.

Good for the soul.

I’ve also used that space to take cuttings and grow the plants that I wanted in my formal bed. 

 

...baby brachyglottis for the front of the bed... cuttings taken from himself behind the lavendar...

Herbs and strawbs...

First job, as soon as I moved in 18 months ago: cover the entire grassy triangle with Mypex membrane, which lets the water through but denies light and life to everything underneath. Don’t be tempted to use black plastic. It’s not porous so it’s not healthy for living beasties who live below.

Did I say entire? Well ,no, I left the grass exposed in the little triangle where I wanted wildflowers to grow. So the grass grew until last winter, when 

slowly slowly, slowly.

in wellies and mud mud mud,

all the time,
taking breaks,
listening to the wind,

and my raspy old breath.

What a racket.
Like a flash flood forced through rice cakes.

Slowly muddily removing the grass from the wildflower bed. Five two hour sessions of lifting this barren lifeless turf, not an earthworm or creepy-crawly in sight, dead soil, perfect for the resilient unwelcome grass provided by Co. Mayo.

For a small job removing that grass from what is now my wildflower bed was a massive task. Grass usually wins in the end, although as I said before, on this plot bramble will supersede all.

I really didn’t expect it to work so well. I was thinking at least 20% of the grass would return, which I’d still see as a result, but scarcely any has returned so far.

Grasses and chickstickers come through the gap in the fence, and bramble from all directions, but the grass is under control. It pops up here and there, but I’m on it like a wasp on jam.

Actually, that’s a lie: none of it is under control. I’m just on top of it, on my little patch, at the moment.

That’s all it is.
‘On top of it’ is as good as it gets.

I’m not trying to subjugate the powers of nature. I’m merely encouraging, enabling, and the rest is out of my hands.

That grassless lifeless triangle was then given bags of garden fertiliser, wood chips, potting compost and more garden fertiliser. I was nicking worms from friends’ gardens, bringing ‘em home and dropping them in there.

Then I sowed my wildflower seed, walking on top of it, all over for a while, and moved on.

That bed has never been watered or weeded. I’m not deadheading it. I’m letting it do its thing and loving how many plants that weren’t in my wildflower seed collection are now showing their faces.

That makes me smile.

I took all the containers growing plants for the new formal bed and put them on the mypex where the formal bed is now, laying an edge border with some old laminates...

 

 

...and then I got two tonnes of sandstone gravel dropped into my tiny garden.

That mountain stood in front of me and several times challenged my will.

But slowly slowly.
Rake and stop.
Breathe.
Slowly.

Wasn’t as tough as it looked.
Compared to the grass it was a doddle, but oh yeh! Now I was walking on stone, not flooded muddy mypex.
Oh my god that was just wonderful.

This summer I took delivery of two trellises, a tonne of topsoil, seven 25kg bags of horticultural grit and four bags of manure, to which I added five bags of fine garden compost. All of that I laid lasagne style into the new more formal bed. 

Now the plants are all in, and I’m sowing the bed with feverfew seeds and the seeds of giant nigella (love in a mist) growing in my containers. I figure that’ll fill the spaces with all sorts of colour and form.

All my own seeds, my cuttings and lurrrve, but nature's work.

The only plants I bought were the fuchsia and the honeysuckle - everything else I grew myself. The plan is that the brachyglottis cuttings in front will grow and be clipped into a low hedge, forming a border. The bees love its yellow flowers.
 

 

The pollinators love all my garden. The wildflowers, the fuchsia, the columbine, the sunflowers … everything.

I figured if the blackberry love it so much, its cousins might like it too. I love berries, so huge thanks to Denis for the soft fruit canes.

Also thanks to Mary Munnelly for the rambling rose. I’m so glad to show you how that gorgeous tiny plant you gave me four years ago ended up taking over a wall. Looking forward to next spring when it will be covered in flowers. I’ll make sure to show you when that happens. 

Thanks Mary!

Now I have my yin/yang garden. Wildflower anarchy and freedom on the left. Order in the bed on the right.

Hmm, well ... as much ‘order’ as a rambling rose and two honeysuckles allow.

I built my garden, and now the plants can grow.

 

 

 

©Charlie Adley 08.09.2026

Thankfully you're as loopy as me!

Thanks as always to Allan Cavanagh for the great artwork

 

After lunch I jump into Joey SX and aim for Lough Conn. Out of my cocoon for the first time today, I wonder what’s going on in the world, so I flip on the radio, expecting to hit NewsTalk, but it’s on Today FM.

Fine, who needs to know what’s going on in the world, when you can have a good old sing song? Ooh, even better, they’re doing a quiz.

Unfortunately, I missed the question, but evidently up for grabs is a big weekend for two, in a posh 'resort spa.' I think last year we called them hotels.

Yer man Gerry on the end of the phone is suckin' diesel. Everything is just so funny to him, he can’t stop wid da larfin and da larfin.

I imagine Gerry as an explosion of long curly black hair, cascading over a ball-shaped head, his stubbly face stretched in ecstasy.

“Well, now, Gerry, you said 83, Maria, you guessed 189, and Sean, well you reckoned it was 458. The right answer was.......112, so Gerry in Dublin, well done mate! You’ve won a weekend away for two!”

“Oh tanks! Tanks Tony, tanks tanks tanks! Wow, dass grea’, really grea’! Who’d-a tortit? Who’d-a tortit? Jaize, I tort I was way off!”

Driving along, I wear a big smile on my face, as I enjoy the harmless happiness of a winner. Yet soon enough my mind starts to spin around, in a metaphysical more than Exorcist kind've way. 

Then the driver of car behind me is hooting his horn because, instead of noticing the traffic lights have gone green, I’m staring into space, lost in deep and meaningful philosophical wonder.

Unless my ears deceive me, I just heard Gerry on the radio say he thought his winning answer was “way off."

But hang on...

If he thought his own answer was wrong, then why...

Fantastic! Marvellous! Couldn’t happen anywhere else.

If I told this as an Oirish joke at a London dinner party, I’d be considered vulgar and racist, but right here right now, I’m loving the fact that whenever I think I might be going loopy, the people of Ireland make me feel right at home.

Now before ye all get uppity and irascible and accuse me of accusing you of being nothing more than a bunch of nutters, I suggest that from my perspective, this is a massive compliment.

But anyway, I wasn’t calling you a bunch of nutters: just some of you; well, quite a lot of you, but I reiterate, it’s truly a form of praise, coming from me.

As defined by the cold harsh steel of North European Protestantism, ‘Sanity’ is a fearfully boring and staid state in which to exist.

I love living in a country where people don’t even agree with their own answers!

 

 

©Charlie Adley

06.08.2026

 

SALTHILL PROM AND MY MIND MIX A MIGHTY COCKTAIL!

... a line of gold lit up along the length of the cloud, a shimmering rim of brilliance running across the entire opening of Galway Bay.

 

I had a bit of a moment the other day. With an hour to kill before a meeting in town I drove to Salthill, walked across the car park to the Prom and stood on a rock on the sea wall.

The early evening air was cool and clear. There was not a breath of wind. Under the fading light of a clear blue sky the water in the bay lay perfectly still, a silvery sheen pockmarked by bobbing bunches of seaweed.

Climbing down the rocks I walked along the beach, until I was beyond Palmer’s Rock. The sun was sinking behind a massive wall of dark cloud, towering high into the west, rising from the horizon until it occupied a third of the sky.

As the sun disappeared behind this vast grey barrier, a line of gold lit up along the cloud’s upper edge, a shimmering rim of brilliance running across the entire opening of Galway Bay.

In contrast to this dazzling line of light, the wall of cloud below turned black. Had you just arrived as a stranger in the place I stood, you might well believe that this water vapour was in fact stone; that Galway Bay was a lake, edged by mountains high and mighty, from Black Head to Bearna.

Even though I know a cloud when I see one, something primal deep inside me double checked to make sure that this black monolith was not a tidal wave, rushing to consume us all.

No. Nothing as dramatic as that. So calm, in fact, that the ocean’s edge became indistinguishable from the beach. As the tide edged out it left a glistening shine on the sand, while dusk’s light bounced off the motionless ocean, appearing as a blend of mercury and mirrors.

Despite the roar of traffic in the background and the hordes walking along the Prom, I still managed to find my own space and peace down there.

Staring at a tiny lump of sand, watching as the water lapped over it and receded, waiting, watching, waiting, watching, wondering when will come that moment when the tide might turn.

It’s what I do; what I did that evening and have done everywhere I’ve lived in the West of Ireland. I watch the tide and drift into peace.

Neither Mindfulness nor Meditation, and yet equally both, I have no desire to put a label on it.

I stared for hours at the sunken rocks of Bunowen Bay and the dunes of Doonloughan when I lived in west Connemara. For years in north Mayo I've watched the tide turn along Ross beach, and lost myself many a time in the utter splendour and endless beauty of Kilcummin back strand.

Yet all these natural wonders and altered mental states were only the precursor to my moment. As is often the way, my mind used tide-staring as a trigger to my past.

Adrift within the calmest moment the Atlantic seaboard could ever offer, I suddenly felt lost at sea, washed overboard by a freak wave of emotion.

Replacing my physical vision with a reel of memories, my mind ran a major film event in front of my eyes, showing me reruns of many of the varied events in the last 34 years of my life that have played out on Salthill Prom.

The night in August 1992, when I sat there on the rocks with my new-found friend, as we decided to stay; to try and find a home and make a life here in Galway.

The day when, seven years later, having failed in and fled from America, I stumbled along the Prom, searching for stability, soaking up familiarity.

The night in 1993 when I fell out of Vagabonds and sat on the sea wall with my beautiful date, stole a kiss, sipped whiskey from a naggin, felt thrilled at the opportunities the night ahead offered, and then dropped my house keys into the deep dark void between the rocks.

The day I walked to Gentian Hill believing I would never again take a step without back pain, and the day when I realised it was gone.

The countless out-loud talks I’ve had with myself, like the crazy guy you don’t want to sit next to on the bus. Open dialogues that escape my mind, transforming into voice, in your space and face, as I walk alone along the Prom.

Back in 1992, a few days after my decision to try and build a life in Galway, the weather finally changed and my jaw dropped. Up until then, fog and low cloud had obscured the Burren, so great was my joy when for the first time I saw the sensual purple hills of County Clare.

Thousands of walks along the Prom: my lifeline; my mental health; my physical saviour.

The Prom lifted my spirits, clearing my head of the detritus of everyday life. Along its length I spilled my emotional angst, vitriol and bile, so that by time I returned home my mind was free, my spirit cleansed, my body alive and tingling.

Meteorological marvels have sometimes allowed me to make out smoke rising from a chimney far across the bay in Ballyvaughan. A beam of sunlight picks out a field of rich deep green above Bell Harbour, and when the light shimmers and glows in just right way, all three Aran islands can float into view, vibrating as melting mirages in the distance.

I was silly to be surprised by my moment. I had not been to the Prom for many months and was foolish to underestimate my love for it and Galway Bay.

My heart was almost washed away by the flood of memories. My soul lifted like a kite in the wind, tears swelled in my eyes.

Having paid my respects to the Prom and my past I gave thanks, turned around and walked on.

©Charlie Adley 

16.07.2026

Despite FIFA, this World Cup has brought us all closer together!

 Pics thanks to Bouna/Bendel family

Last night my brother (more a fan of rugby and cricket where England is concerned) sent a message to our Siblings WhatsApp group, asking if my sister and I would be watching the England v Norway game.

I’m sure he knew I would be. He said that they had friends coming over for dinner, but would be insisting that either they left early or stayed to watch the match.

My sister (a massive fan of Wimbledon but not football, although she watched the entire Mexico game) explained how her young grandson was going to watch with his parents at friends, while she would be watching with her little granddaughter on a sleepover.

Apart from weddings and funerals I cannot think of any other event in which we would all be involved simultaneously.

Despite the worst efforts of FIFA, this World Cup has achieved what all previous have done: it has brought us all closer together, as a species.

With more countries qualifying than ever before, the group stage felt bloated and lacking in jeopardy, but it also gave us magic moments.

Hands up here: I didn’t even know Curaçao was a place. I thought it was just an ingredient in cocktails, but the footage of the TV journalist reporting from a bar in the tiny Caribbean island at the precise moment that their team scored a goal was priceless.

The place exploded with exuberant joy, leaving the journo no choice but to join in, leaping up and down like a 7 year-old.

The world smiled at that moment.

We’ve seen minnows Cape Verde holding mighty World Champions Argentina to a draw for 111 minutes, and on the way learned that the place we describe as ‘Cape Verdy’ is known by its own people as ‘Cap Verd.’

Small details that matter a great deal if you come from Cape Verde. 

As an Englishman living in the Republic of Ireland I no longer go to the pub to watch England games.

Apparently it wasn’t Oscar Wilde who said:

“The problem is the English can't remember history, while the Irish can't forget it.”

Whoever it was nailed it. After 35 years here, living with the daily, often hourly challenge of being slagged off for things the English did during their occupation of this island, I no longer find it amusing to be heckled and belittled throughout a game.

Instead I choose to stay home, and enjoy rare times in which I’m grateful for social media, sharing the excitement with my English friends and family elsewhere around the world. 

As for tonight’s match I have my doubts. There are massive parallels between being a Chelsea fan and an England fan. My beloved Blues will beat Barcelona on Wednesday and lose to a tiny team on Saturday.

Norway are in no way a tiny team, but England’s victory over Mexico felt like their final. The intensity of our celebrations and physical exertions were massive, and if we lose to Norway tonight, it’ll match a pattern that has existed for decades: struggle out of the groups; win a major knockout game; start to believe the crazed hype; get overexcited and then lose.

History shows us that the Vikings tend to excel against the English. If Norway win, having already beaten the legendary football force that is Brazil, I will feel gutted, but also delighted for them, along with my friends Line and John in Oslo.

FIFA’s gangster leader Johnny Babyface (aka Gianni Infantino) cares not a jot for the Beautiful Game. He is interested only in money and power.

Hence rules were changed so that Ronaldo’s red card in Portugal’s final qualifying game was suspended, along with the mighty scandal of USA striker Balogun's red card reversal, after intervention from Trump.

Did the president really care about the USA Soccer team? No, as ever you have to follow the money: take a look at the crazily inflated prices the US TV networks were able to charge for advertising space during USA games, and boom! You’ve found the lobby that drove that decision.

 

In the tradition of Morecambe and Wise, here’s a little poem wot I wrote to show how I feel:

Gianni Babycakes decides what is or is not
Whichever way he dives you know he cops the lot.
Seems that Human Rights Violations
Help him choose his host nations
From Russia to Qatar,
USA to Saudi Arabiaaaar      (ouch!)
Gianni is on a mission
To treat us fans with derision.

This colyoom isn’t about the corrupt greed that powers FIFA.
It’s about the pure joy and excitement felt by lovers of the game all over the world.

The pictures here are from friends of mine in London. A Spanish/English family who have cooked a different nation’s food each night, depending on who plays that day. 

When the parents went away for the weekend the kids carried on and cooked for each nation each night. 

When Jude Bellingham was asked how he felt about being booed and jeered as he got off the plane in Mexico City, he smiled and said he loved it, because he admired the passion Mexicans felt for football.

We love loving football. It unites families, friends and nations, offering us all a unique camaraderie (unless you’re Irish.)

I still can’t see anyone beating France, and in the pit of my stomach I see England being knocked out tonight, but I love being wrong, almost as much as I love football.

Maybe, as the landlord of my village pub ironically declared each time I’ve walked in over the last three weeks:

“It’s coming home!”

I very much doubt it, but in the true tradition of the Beautiful Game, let’s hope that at the end of the day, football is the winner. 

 

©Charlie Adley

11.07.2026.

Celebrating a million readers, a special request: Not for everyone, this life where less is more.

A special request from Mike, the editor who awarded me the colyoom and subbed it for 27 years. From November 2001. This is the final visit into the pre-online archive, I promise!

Ever since 1984, I’ve been living on a 24-hour financial cycle, and it’s as tiring as it is liberating.

Rent, food and bills are always covered, and generally I clothe myself in not too disgraceful a fashion. I run a car, visit family and friends in England two or three times a year, and my house is warm.

Most important of all, my life has exceptionally good people in it, but 90% of the time I have not a penny to spend.

Beyond presents for others, and the bare necessities, I do not buy things.

Nada. Zilch.

In the past there were day jobs, night jobs, shift work, temporary, permanent, and on the fly.

I was never perceived as so ‘successful’ as when I was working my backside off as a marketing whizz-kid, for a major Japanese corporate back in the early 1980s. I was earning more money than should be legal for a 23 year-old, and fast-tracking my way up to the Boardroom.

That was when I learned an absolute personal truth: there is no point in earning moolar if it comes in the form of compensation.

So I hate my job? Well, now I can go and spend lots of money, and see if it makes me feel better!

It didn’t, doesn’t and never will.

To me ‘civilised’ means having time to live.

In exchange for the fat wad of folding green every Thursday night, I take a walk on the beach.

Instead of buying CD’s and videos, I listen to the radio and play old cassettes.

Instead of the brimming bank balance, I have all the time in the world.

The stress in others’ lives is palpable. I see the tired black rings around their eyes, listen to their frantic gabbling about how they are trying to ‘fit it all in’, and in those moments, I remind myself that this relative poverty is worth a fortune.

It ain’t all easy. This is a life as tough as any other, just a lot calmer.

My life is less about acquisition, more about introspection; less about buying things, more about less things; less about climbing social ladders, more about spending time living in the present.

Sometimes it is a lonely path, especially when I’m home alone, aware that others are out, living life on the pig’s back.

Still, I’m hardly a slave to suffering, and when a particularly smart editor places one of my features, I drive to the city and splurge a wad in an orgy of consumerist conformism, and each shared whiskey and bite of restaurant food tastes better for the utter badness and excitement of it all.

This colyoom is not pre-scented with smugness. I couldn’t look my loved ones in the eye if I suggested that my life is a breeze.

Of course I get frustrated when I want to take herself out for a posh slap-up dinner, and I feel inhibited when generous souls drag me out to the pub, knowing that rounds only go one way, but hell, they seem to love me, and who am I to say no?

Sometimes, even when you know your friend really wants to help, you just can’t accept any more generosity.

And then you get over it and say

“Well, a wee whiskey would be lovely, thanks Dave!” 

 

©Charlie Adley

12.11.2001