And Life Lights Up

Alice Taylor lives in the village of Innishannon in County Cork, in a house attached to the local supermarket and post office. Her first book, To School Through the Fields, was published in 1988. It was an immediate success and quickly became the biggest selling book ever published in Ireland.Alice has written nearly twenty books since then, largely exploring her beloved village and the ways of life in rural Ireland. She has also written poetry and fiction: her first novel, The Woman of the House, was an immediate bestseller. Most recently, she wrote a children's picture book with her daughter Lena Angland, called Ellie and the Fairy Door.Emma Byrne is a graphic designer and artist. She is a graduate of Central Saint Martins School of Art and Design. She has won numerous awards for her design including The IDI (Irish Design Institute) Graduate Designer of the Year, the IDI Promotional Literature Award for her work on Brown Morning, and a Children’s Books Ireland Bisto Merit Award for her work on Something Beginning With P: New Poems from Irish Poets. She has illustrated many books, including Best-Loved Oscar Wilde, Best-Loved Yeats, The Most Beautiful Letter in the World by Karl O’Neill, a special edition of Ulysses by James Joyce, and A Terrible Beauty by Mairéad Ashe Fitzgerald. Her other books are Irish Thatch and, with Eoin O’Brien, Best-Loved Irish Ballads.

• Introduction – Golden Moments 9Part 1 AWARENESSOut of Our Minds page 15Meeting the Morning 21Repairs and Maintenance 29Afternoon Tea 35An Ordinary Day 39Finding My Feet 45The Wonder of Wood 51Take Good Care of Me 56Part 2 ROOTSBeauty from Boredom 67The Gap 73The Well 77The Fort Field 82The Sacred Earth 90Part 3 SPECIAL MOMENTS IN THE GARDENDancing with the Day 101Red and Yellow 104Black Gold 107Blue Brilliance 112Fresh Flowers 115Waiting … 124The Plantsman 129An Old Tree 133Part 4 SMALL KINDNESSESThe Black Bubble 143Beautiful Mind 147Battered Chalice 152Never Suppress a Good Impulse 156Let It Be 161A Passing Kindness 165Part 5 THEN AND NOWThe Agony and the Ecstasy 172A Time to Write 178From There to Here 182Refeathering the Nest 189It Takes So Long to Say Goodbye 193Both Sides Now 197

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