Life
Alice’s cocooning experience was quite positive. ‘How can I complain? I have plenty of space and a big garden.
Positive thoughts from Innishannon
Colette Sheridan met best-selling author Alice Taylor who has just published her journal of the lock-down
Gardening, writing, painting and having long conversations on the phone with friends and family kept the County Cork writer, Alice Taylor, sane during the over-70s’ cocooning phase of the Covid-19 lockdown. Living in the small village of Innishannon - the gateway to scenic West Cork - Alice (82) is very much a glass half-full person. The author of To School Through the Fields, the 1988 bestseller, is not one for self -pity. Her husband died in 2005. She lives alone, but Alice knows the importance of family (she has five children and six grandchildren) and community. She makes it sound as if she has a rich satisfying life. Her latest book, A Cocoon with a View is her twenty-seventh book and is full of astute observations. Alice’s cocooning experience was quite positive. ‘How can I complain? I have plenty of space and a big garden. I love gardening. I write. And I’m a bit of a home bird anyway which is a big plus. I had plenty of time for myself. Maybe that’s a selfish streak in me. I did a lot of poderawling. That’s from an Irish word for kind of meandering around and doing nothing 24 Senior Times l August 2020 l www.seniortimes.ie
in particular until you come across something that you want to do.’ Having a book out so soon on the topic of cocooning, among other material, suggests that Alice had to write it in a rush so that it could be published for the summer market. But it was no bother to her as she journals every day. When O’Brien Press approached her about a book, she had the bones of it written. There is, she says, nothing like recording events as they happen. Poetry quotes While Alice is one of life’s enthusiasts, whose animated conversation is peppered with quotes from the poetry of Padraig Pearse and W B Yeats among others, she admits that during lockdown, she had the odd day when she’d wake up and think ‘mother of God, how will I get out of this bloody bed’? But you have to get yourself out of it.; And just as importantly, you have to find something to do. ‘There’s therapy in doing. You learn that the
hard way. When you’re bereaved, after burying someone very close to you, you find you have to engage in doing something you enjoy. I found the garden saved my sanity when I was grieving. You mightn’t want to do anything, but once you start gardening, it takes on a life of its own. You get drawn into it and two hours later, you realise you feel better. It happens without you being aware of it.’ Alice says that when everyone else was panic-buying toilet rolls, she was stocking up on sweet pea seeds. Fragrant sweet peas are essential to her spring/summer garden and her wellbeing. She has planted them all over her garden where she eats when the weather allows, and where she watches the returning swallows. Nature is her balm. She says that her garden ‘is more of a jungle really, a kind of woodland full of trees, attracting birds. In the garden, things are constantly evolving. It’s full of miracles. Even this morning, as I walked around the yard, I noticed a pinkish red full-headed rose that had come out. Don’t ask me the name of it. I’m not a good botanical garden but I vaguely know what I’m doing.’
