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45

15th Dec. 1953.  My 70th birthday. 

In afternoon Daisy & I walked from Rathfarnham bus home via where the Narrow Walls used to be [now a Dublin Corporation housing estate), Hughes's milk depot, & Orwell Bridge.  In the ditch just W. of Nutgrove & The Narrow Walls saw a flower on the only plant of Lesser Celandine now visible - the sunk ditch in which it formerly flourished having been filled in during the making of the new roadway.

From 15th till 31st Dec. we had mainly dull & damp weather:  mild till after Xmas & then colder, but no real cold & no snow & only a couple of slight white frosts.

In Christmas week two Snowdrops appeared under the drawing room window, but did not flower or get any further on before the new year.  On Sunday 27th Dec. George drove Daisy & me to the Brittas Ponds & we then walked up to N. end of Lynch Park & back to his car:  collected a few mosses off the Lynch Park wall for Miss Thomson:  all the mosses looking very beautiful after the mild damp weather of the last month.  No wasps seen during this last fortnight, but not seriously looked for & some probably about if we had been in the right places.  A walk up the hill behind St. Columba's College & along the Dodder on various dates completed our outings.


46.

1954.

[[newspaper clipping]] THE MILD WINTER

SIR.-It is perhaps worth recording among the curious results of our so-far mild winter that on New Year's Day, in a sheltered bank here, a wasps' nest was still in full activity.  Apart from this, the latest date I have for a wasps' nest in this neighbourhood is December 18th - in 1951. - Yours, etc.'
DAVID SHAW SMITH.
Bally Olaf,
Dundrum, Co. Dublin.
January 2nd, 1954. 

Irish Times 6th Jan 1954. [[/newspaper clipping]]

The first week of the New Year was colder than December & ended in very severe frost on nights of 6th & 7th Jan.  Then mild again with some drizzle.  On 6th Jan. appeared the enclosed letter in the Irish Times from Mr. David Shaw Smith to whom I wrote on that day.  On Sunday, 10th Jan., we went by 9.10 bus to Ballyboden & walked up the Military Road & down Woodtown hill to Old Bawn & then back toward Firhouse & until picked up by 12.10, noon, bus from Tallaght.  At foot of Military Rd., one flower on Lesser Celandine on east side of the road where a little of the plant survives severe cleaning of the ditch two years ago.  On 9th also saw one flower by the race below the weir on the Dodder at Dartry.  Our two snowdrops still not really open though in full bud for a fortnight.  The coming flower spikes on Sax. apiculata now clearly raised above the cushion & those of Sax. oppositifolia also evident.


11th-12th. Jan. '54. 

On way to see Dudley Westropp at Clonskeagh on 11th saw the first Yellow Crocus ready to open (had there been sun) in a garden at Milltown.  12th mild, windy, with falling glass, & skiff of rain at 10.30 AM.  Our two Snowdrops under drawing-room windows full open at 11 AM. when a watery sun came out.