Paula Shields

What a sky!

Here’s a special place …

And wrong in every sense of the word.

Adoration of the Maggi®

She was a funny, charming queen, did things on her own terms so we worshipped and obeyed accordingly.

Beautiful black and white dog

Oh losing our fluffy overlords is tough - Dec 27 last year, I found out my girl Ginger had a tumour, having gone to the vet thinking she had a bug and just needed an antibiotic. 3 days later, she was gone.

Print featuring a lone bird in black flying across a bleak white landscape towards a copse of bare winter trees

#Winter, 1955 by Japanese artist and poet Keiko Minami #WomensArt

I worked in a lovely children’s bookshop in Muswell Hill for the legendary Lesley Agnew.
I loved the 12-year-old customers (usually girls) who came in to ask for exact title, subtitle, author with the exact £7.99 or whatever in cash. Proper fans. Leaving nothing to chance.

I know that I shall meet my fate,
Somewhere among the clouds above,
That I fight I do not hate,
Those that I guard I do not love.
- An Irish Airman Foresees His Fate, Yeats

The on-hold music for Waitrose’s customer helpline is just a swan reading share prices to some brioche.

If you see this please share (i.e. repost, not just like)! The Barbellion Prize is a unique award for writers with disabilities. We need to raise £20k to secure its future, so please make a donation, no matter how large, no matter how small, here: barbellionprize.org/donate/ Thank you!

Now that is a dragon!

Collage of prints from my site #SpéirGorm #SpéirGhorm #Ireland

One of the handwritten gift notes that I can include for free with all orders, if desired.

First year selling my art at Christmas without the Other site, where most of my sales came from, as well as losing US orders to new tariffs, so it'll be a tough one - I put huge work into every order, so even if you can't buy, shares help get them in front of eyes. GRMA! www.ciaraioch.com/artprints

My brother gave me one of your beautiful prints as a gift. I love your art ciaraioch.com

I hate to break it to you, but you're all living in a Kevin Barry short story.

It gives me pause when I walk out from Holywood along the south side of Belfast Lough to think of the city and its history, tucked in to the left as if it’s not there, the centuries of dispute invisible in the sheltered air, the birds of the far north wintering out, as they have for millennia.

One of the best podcasts around, Andy. Backlisted now a formidable- in the French sense- library in its own right. Thank you for the company, the fun and the’new’ books to read.

The Dublin Small Press Fair was a joy to experience today at Pearse Library, Dublin

Celebrating small-scale publishing in Ireland and welcoming small presses from abroad.

Congrats to Dublin Small Press Fair organisers and team

Here's to many more! 📕👏

#smallpresspublishing #irishpublishing

A one-off, Cathy

(John Hewitt, ‘Selected Poems’)

(from ‘The Search’)

“Often you will regret the voyage,
wakening in the dark night to recall that other place
or glimpsing the moon rising and recollecting
that it is also rising over named hills,
shining on known waters.”

Heading to Dublin tomorrow

🙌

Stationery brightness through a rain-soaked window

Louisa!

A rainbow arcs down to the right, appearing to touch ground on a red sandstone beach beneath a green, flat/topped cliff. The sea is brisk with whitecaps in the bay and in the foreground are the black basalt boulders for which Giants Causeway is famous.

The weathered hexagonal basalt columns of Giants Causeway, maybe 80 foot (2 houses) high, with brown heather cliffs beyond them.

Two laughing people stand braced on a slope of red sandstone by a basalt outcropping. They are both wearing big coats. A big fluffy cloud passes behind them over the sea.

Yeah so Giant's Causeway actually is all that. Literally found the end of the rainbow, as well as the location for the final scene of MAEVE (Pat Murphy & John Davies, 1981) (Not pictured bc it was hailing by the time we worked it out.)

Loved it. Will listen again- there was a lot to it!

A must-read thread for the world-weary on this #Caturday

Mrs Palfrey to be my next Elizabeth Taylor!

Oh yes, I loved Angel - monstrous and heartbreaking and v v funny on writers and writing!

I’m still recovering from Angel.