Welcome from Beautiful Northern Ireland where I live on the North Down coast of the Ards Peninsula. I couldn’t imagine not living on this outcrop of land surrounded by the ebb and flow of the Irish Sea on its craggy eastern coastline, and the strong tidal currents that flow into Strangford Lough on its western shoreline.

I’m part of this place and it is part of me. It has flowed in my blood and beat in my heart for over 50 years. I have lived ‘inland’ where the landscape is gentle rolling drumlin hills and fertile farmscapes, tramping over lush fields and jumping gentle streams, gathering flowering gorse. I have dwelled in villages on the shoreline of Strangford Lough with idyllic summers spent on saltmarsh and mudflats, exploring uninhabited islands accessible by stony causeways. And for the last twenty or more years I have resided on the coastline of the Irish Sea with lazy midsummer days whiled away on sandy beaches, wading in rockpools, paddling in cool waters, then winter walks on those same beaches, seaweed-strewn, beaten by wind and rain.

This peninsula I love is home to a varied and abundant wildlife, the landscape shifting from wild coastal terrain to gentle rolling drumlin hills to a diverse shoreline of saltmarsh, sand and mud flats surrounding a tidal lough which sustains over 2000 recorded marine species and huge flocks of overwintering birds. An area of outstanding natural beauty.

There are magical stories in this geology and landscape - in its ancient rocks, islands and drumlins, in its holy wells, early churches, weathered graveyards, and fascinating burial monuments. It inspires me every day. It calls me home.