After the excesses of Christmas and New Year - very well, after the good, rich eating and drinking of Christmas and New Year - a breath of sanity and fresh air comes through the post in the form of the plans for Rossinver Organic Centre, Co Leitrim, for their 2001 programme. They are expanding their services with a new visitor and training centre. They will be able to offer refreshments in their organic cafe and will also have a library, a shop and modern training-rooms.
They have doubled the number of courses on offer and write in their introduction to the new programme: "Whether your interest is in organic gardening, healthy living or the environment, we believe that you will find something in our programme to interest you." Well said, for many people who would like to improve their garden produce might be put off a bit if everything was labelled only "organic". It's a broad church.
This writer remembers vividly a chef on French television, maybe 20 years ago, saying that he never ate an apple without first peeling it. The centre, by the way, is on a site of 19 acres - about eight miles from Manorhamilton - developing its services each year since its 1995 opening.
One young couple went to a course a few years ago and since then their garden is strictly run on organic lines: vegetables, herbs, soft fruits such as raspberries and strawberries as well as currant bushes. Apple and pear trees are stretched tight against the walls. They are fortunate to have inherited in their garden a huge sugarpear tree. All strictly organic now, with a fine garden compost.
Rossinver has a newly designed compost demonstration area. It evaluates the options of ready-made as opposed to home-made compost heaps and bins. Interesting section headed: "Can you make a living from one acre?" Chris Smith, who gives the demonstration, has been growing vegetables in Westport for 15 years and supplies local restaurants, shops and Westport Country Market.
What about slugs and snails? Our young couple live in a stone-walled house in Dublin built in 1864. The male of the couple, when a child, lived in a similar one and remembers the crunch, crunch of snails at night as they emerged from the cracks between the big stones - the crunch being from a pair of hedgehogs.
They had one here too, but it died. Instead, the young daughter and the pair trample the shells. Telephone for the centre: 072 54338.