There are two stories here:

The first is that, in the month of July, you’ll see the beautiful pink heads of round Alium-like flowers appear. This is wild garlic, and my neighbour makes garlic pesto from it, so I painted this for her.

After a visit to the Vandaleur Gardens with her, when she admired a painting that was for sale, I said ‘I can paint something like that for you.’ This was the painting that had me returning to my art again after a long time away. It now hangs in her she-shed at her house on the Old Bog Road.

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The second story is that my sons, and the Meade boys from next door, picked wild garlic and sold it by halting the tractors and cars meandering down the one lane of the Old Bog Road. Most passerbys chuckled at their entrepreneurial spirit. They trusted that this pop-up market would last a day or two at most and parted willingly with their coins. A decade later, it makes me laugh to think that their GAA football gloves (garden glove substitutes) still hold the sharp scent of garlic…and the memory.