A Cocoon With A View

Back in the last weeks of February, which now feels like a hundred years ago, we here in Innishannon were busy planning what was  termed 'The Big Rake Off' of the dead grass on the long sloping bank beside the road coming into the village. Happily unaware of forthcoming events, we were totally focused on creating our wild flower bank: to get something like this going you need a 'metheal', a word which prior to the corona virus was unknown to anyone under 40.    Then everything changed ... Exploring the themes of community, family and personal wellbeing, Alice Taylor examines a world changed utterly by the arrival of a once-in-a-century infectious disease. Heart-warming, reflective yet always practical, Alice is a wonderful guide in a world unlike the one we lived in only a few short months ago.

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.