Lots of two-ing and fro-ing with proposals and emails today and my head is exploding from all of the imminent potentialities and holding of threads. I notice the Irish spurge has formed a golden pathway to and//away from the ponds. This path came to be here and drew the surge in its wake – or – were the walkers ( two-legged and four-legged ) led to this track by the imminence of the golden bush….? There are so many new pathways this year in the Glen. The scarred loose skinned Rowan is sprouting new growth just by where the oyster mushrooms were, such survival coming from its hollow body. Mooching on – along the path to the ridge, and passing through the Gothic zone I see the budding hawthorn ready to bloom in true May style, despite the Arctic summer so far. As usual there are a couple of young women around the swing. I walk on by, making sure I take the path where they must acknowledge my presence as the swing cuts the path and all passers by. Further on I spy another intrepid pair across the way, on an ambitious climb up the north facing cliff, they are helping each other with care up the incline, slowly jackets coming off and going back on with the effort pink black pink black semaphore. I do the loop of the heath and on my way back I find the swing girls have moved on and so I linger, breathing in the elements of this corner of the Glen. I capture the poplars in my app, these elegant 3 ladies give me so much pleasure as I look down from the ridge; tall, sweeping, and that soft grey green that lifts the valley out of its depths. Back at the ponds I glimpse another siting of cuckoo flowers at the shrunken water’s edge. There are two young women on the first bridge trying to free a long branch from the dry river descent. I notice some balls of fuzz along the neatly strimmed edges and I find myself grabbing a fistful of bulrush fluff, the two girls who are now armed with the long branch ask me what for, and I tell them for my mammy’s pond, they move along to their spot and I forget to notice what they were trying to fish out of the pond as I have been picking some sedge heads, and by the time I arrive at their spot they have given up and the branch is stranded in the mud. I see instead the seed heads on some other rushes and, remembering RW Kimmerer’s gift economy, I thank the plants by the names I know and invent others as I go along, layering them gently into my pocket. I move along to the metal bridge and can’t resist a small detour to see the growth on the folly and here I find The plantain ribwort soldiers are zipping up on the zigzag.
The sky is full of pinkness on the way home as I stop and steal a few shots of the houses at Sunview East to send to GO’B in reference to his map of the street today.
As promised I’m attaching a map of Sunview and the Glen in the 1960s. Hope you can make out my writing, it’s probably a bit too detailed but you’ll see how things have changed-I find it a bit strange going down that way myself now. Next time I’m in Cork, if I have time, I must look at it properly to see if I can make it all out. You’ll see that the pond is a lot smaller and there were two tracks from where the playing field is now, one down a steep hill –called the big hill– and the other winding round was called the horse’s track or the cart track. Of the other features that have totally disappeared are the old bridge at the top of the Glen which spanned a stream that rose in Stream Hill (rather obviously) and flowed behind Sunview and down into the river. On the west side of that stream was a boundary wall which was already in ruins by then. The two stone pillars you’ll see marked on my map were the entrance to Rice’s land and were the demarcation beyond which many kids of the area were forbidden to go unaccompanied.That part of the lane at the bottom of Sunview (the Glen Lane, we called it) had high walls on either side that stopped at the pillars, already mentioned. Have fun – GO’B (30.04.2021)
Tim Cramer’s house – 5/ 6? Bowens House?
An orderly hedge now at the old Market Garden? It would be lovely to have a market garden in the Glen again!
Thanks also for the photos of Sunview. They do look very respectable nowadays, if fact the whole area looks very well indeed. You’re right about the Black Patch being under the playing fields. It had become a tennis court the last time I saw it. The black was created by tons of cinders being dumped there from all the houses round about in the late nineteenth century. Over the years they became compacted and created a perfect all-weather playing field that only very short grass grew on. Rices quarry was more to the east of that, almost by the river, The closed in council yards and sheds cover most of that now. The rifle range is long gone. When they built the Glen estate, the builders removed tons of gravel (illegally) from that hillside to use in the construction and all that side of the hill has been consequently altered from almost a cliff face to the gentle slope it is now.Interested to know where that quince is growing. We used to have one growing against the wall of the house, I wonder if it’s a descendant? GO’B (7.07.2021)