Finally – A Face Lift!
We finally got around to painting our six bathrooms in the main house - a job that was put on the long finger for about…
Choose Your Own Normal
I usually don’t hate it so much when Hannah is right. Was it really just two weeks ago that the car driving in front of…
The Sixth Course
In March, the Roundwood team gained an invaluable addition with the arrival of Ted. Ted is a friend of mine from Canada, who possesses a…
The Road Less Travelled
Spend enough time anywhere and it will become normal. When I first arrived in Ireland from Canada in 1998, I savoured every small, alien detail.…
Snow Day
Walking in an Irish winter-land. You should try it. Surreal and beautiful, and not all that common in this country. Coming from Canada, as I…
Swear Jar
There is a certain amount of inevitable overlap between home life and business when you run your home as a business. Therefore you need to…
Kitchen Notes: Butter Tarts
When I took over the cheffing duties at Roundwood I was entirely new to the game. I didn't arrive with a bag of tricks, so…
Notes from the Kitchen… Time to move on…
The new oven weighs roughly a million pounds. It’s two ovens, actually, one stacked on top of the other and combined they’re nearly fourteen feet tall.…
Kitchen Notes… Wild Mushroom Soup
Wild Mushrooms 250g Dried Mushrooms 250g White Onion 1 Garlic 1 Bulb White Wine 250ml Water 500ml Cream 500ml Rosemary Sage Thyme Salt Coarse Black…
Notes from the Kitchen… Basket Case
I think there's something great about eating the thing that your food comes in. A crunchy foil housing a gooey centre. Gooey things can be…
The Beginning…
There was a time in my life when it would have been unimaginable to me that I would be writing a piece about life in…
Notes from the Kitchen… How do you cure an egg yolk?
How do you cure an egg yolk? First, you have to get it to admit that it’s sick. But after that it's a pretty easy…
Notes from the Kitchen… Songs of Innocence & Experience
Delicious animal face parts. . . Many people would argue that these words should never be spoken together. But have you ever tried a braised…
Walk-On Part
We all play the lead role in our own life story. That is until we get married and have kids. After that, the best one…
Sheridan
In every good life there are bad days, and this was one of them. One thing I haven't gotten used to in the country is…
Bunny and The Yellow Hammer
The Yellow Hammer was buried on Saturday. That wasn't his real name. His real name was Ivor and no-one had been able to explain to…
The Phone Call
I love my life here. It’s a pretty magical existence, living in a 300 year old country estate, surrounded by nature and animals, my girls…
Dog Days of an Irish Summer
One Sunday, in the not too distant past, we decided to take advantage of the rare confluence of sunshine and a day off, by going…