It's been a long nine months since my last post. In my defence, I've been working hard to finish my BSc in Environmental Management. This is my final year and the exams start in about ten days... Nervous? Me?? Uhm, yes - I have no fingernails left.
What a very, very busy year. I completed a dissertation on natural capital to investigate how to support businesses to engage with biodiversity, did a policy research placement with Business in the Community Ireland to inform Ireland's first national plan on Corporate Social Responsibility (www.bitc.ie), wrote and edited reports on a couple of major international development projects, helped out with communications stuff for Ireland's first conference on Natural capital 'Ireland's Hidden Wealth' (www.naturalcapitalireland.com) and planned a trip to Ethiopia (leaving in August, right after seeing Kate Bush live, can't wait). I'm sure there has been a bunch of other projects too but my brain is too full of geostrophic wind formulae and plume rise factors to dig them out.
I haven't been completely avoiding the natural world though. I followed the fates of a family of cormorants all winter (seven of them in total, they'd sit hunched on a dead tree outside my kitchen window and bask their wings in the sun). Have been keeping an eye on the herons too - plenty of them around - and the other day, I took a break from the books and walked down the old road (a wild and wonderful dead end by the river) where I found three little egrets. There must be a lot of fish in the Nore... a good sign for the coming season!
It's wonderful to see all the trees budding. Everything's out except the beech (slowcoach! But I suppose it does hang onto its leaves the longest so I shouldn't give it too hard a time). We didn't lose a single tree in the wild winds that devastated the rest of the country. I wonder if it has something to do with the mass of the flood water on the ground, exerting pressure and holding the roots in? It was up to my waist at the entrance to the maze, higher than I've ever seen it before (thanks for the loan of the waders Bobby! No leaks!). Even our newly raised entrance got flooded. Typical.
Anyway here's hoping for a warm, dry summer with lots of impromptu barbeques by the river and wild swimming. And hammocks. And novels, gin and tonics and kingfishers. In that order please! Now, back to the books...
What a very, very busy year. I completed a dissertation on natural capital to investigate how to support businesses to engage with biodiversity, did a policy research placement with Business in the Community Ireland to inform Ireland's first national plan on Corporate Social Responsibility (www.bitc.ie), wrote and edited reports on a couple of major international development projects, helped out with communications stuff for Ireland's first conference on Natural capital 'Ireland's Hidden Wealth' (www.naturalcapitalireland.com) and planned a trip to Ethiopia (leaving in August, right after seeing Kate Bush live, can't wait). I'm sure there has been a bunch of other projects too but my brain is too full of geostrophic wind formulae and plume rise factors to dig them out.
I haven't been completely avoiding the natural world though. I followed the fates of a family of cormorants all winter (seven of them in total, they'd sit hunched on a dead tree outside my kitchen window and bask their wings in the sun). Have been keeping an eye on the herons too - plenty of them around - and the other day, I took a break from the books and walked down the old road (a wild and wonderful dead end by the river) where I found three little egrets. There must be a lot of fish in the Nore... a good sign for the coming season!
It's wonderful to see all the trees budding. Everything's out except the beech (slowcoach! But I suppose it does hang onto its leaves the longest so I shouldn't give it too hard a time). We didn't lose a single tree in the wild winds that devastated the rest of the country. I wonder if it has something to do with the mass of the flood water on the ground, exerting pressure and holding the roots in? It was up to my waist at the entrance to the maze, higher than I've ever seen it before (thanks for the loan of the waders Bobby! No leaks!). Even our newly raised entrance got flooded. Typical.
Anyway here's hoping for a warm, dry summer with lots of impromptu barbeques by the river and wild swimming. And hammocks. And novels, gin and tonics and kingfishers. In that order please! Now, back to the books...
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