About me……I’m Margaret, born in Limerick way back when, and then on my sixteenth birthday the family moved to Dublin.
That was an interesting experience for a 16 year old – new school, new friends, etc. I survived it and went on to spend most of my life working for various companies in Dublin city. I became the total city girl – theatre, cinema, clubs, rugby, races, etc. etc.
Having worked for others for so many years, during the last recession in the ’80’s I started my own business, which ran quite well (I was never going to be a millionaire at it, but I made a decent living) up to the late 1990’s.
Then a man walked into my life (now Farmer Alfie) and we set up a business in Dublin which we ran for a number of years.
In 2003 we decided to move out of the city and started the search for a new place to live, with no exact idea of a location. We’ve ended up here in North Tipperary and I often say ‘we should have moved years earlier’. We have had so much fun and enjoyment in our new neighbourhood, and as I thoroughly enjoyed reading ‘A Year in Provence’ by Peter Mayle all those years ago, I thought it was time I started to log (blog) our life here in the country, and the conversion of a city girl to a country girl.
I’ve only recently realised that John Thaw (the thinking woman’s sex symbol!) played the part of Peter Mayle in the movie of the book…. will have to get that out and watch. I used to be a huge Morse fan, there was nothing nicer than pizza, glass of wine and Morse on TV!
Back to Alfie and I…. we both thoroughly enjoy our food…. grow our own pigs and sheep, keep hens and ducks and try to grow most of our own vegetables. We are also the ‘humans’ to 2 dogs and a cat.
In 2013 we entered into the world of hosting via AirBnB, and have to say we’ve enjoyed meeting wonderful people from all over the world.
This blog is about food, gardening, life in the country, photography and anything else that happens to spring to mind or exercise the brain!
I hope you will enjoy reading of some of our adventures and mis-adventures. If you enjoy the read, please pass on the word!
A Year In Redwood 
HI MARGARET-IT IS YOUR OLD FRIEND FROM ELF-DO YOU REMEMBER THE DAY WE MET-I WAS WORKING IN ELF AND YOUR TRAIN WAS LATE COMING FROM MALAHIDE AND WE WERE ALL WONDERING WERE THIS NEW GIRL WAS AND SHE FINALLY ARRIVED AND SO STARTED OUR FRIENDSHIP-WHAT YEAR WAS THAT HA HA – THEY WERE THE GOOD DAYS AT ELF. HOPE YOUR ENJOYING THE GOOD LIFE WITH FARMER ALFIE,LIFE GOOD HERE IN TEMPLEOGUE WITH KEVIN AND KATHARINE AND BETWEEN THE TWO OF US – YOU AND ME – OUR NEW YEAR RESOLUTIONS IS TO MEET UP FOR COFFEE, TILL THEN HAPPY NEW YEAR HELENA
Hey Helena,
Great to hear from you… and to know you are reading blog! Hope to organise a day off to go socialise in Dublin sometime in the next few weeks… will get in touch with sorted!
Margaret
By the way… cannot believe you remember that my train was delayed on first day…. either I’m having selective memory loss or a senior moment!
Hi There,
I have just over an hour ready your blog, great stuff. I just started my own one about 10 days ago. 2010 for me is taking up growing fruit & veg for our restaurant in Howth called Aqua.
Hi Dave,
Good luck with your blog (will go read now) and with growing your own fruit and veg! All these things can take up so much time! I have to find time over the next day or two to go through seed catalogues and start sowing!
Margaret
Hi Margaret – Great blog:) I have a feeling I met your husband on a business course over a year ago…about blogging and stuff…seem to remember the raising pigs thing and told him Id love to blog about you guys- may be wrong- anyway, thanks for the re-tweets and FB mentions.
Still would love to meet you and hear about your new country life with pigs – your st. pat’s in Portroe diving centre looked interesting too!
Anyway, hello- will be following your blog now too!
Hi Lisa,
Yes, you did meet Alfie at a course! We should meet – we’re almost neighbours!
Margaret
Help Margret,
I just wanted to say how nice it was to meet you on Friday.
You are leagues above all of us with your lovely idea to donate all the goodies to the local food shelter. Thank you also for your kind comments. It is always nice to hear there is someone on the other end reading.
Looking forward to our next meeting. If you are ever in Galway please let me know and we can have tea.
Móna xxx
Mona,
It was lovely to meet you too! Still trying to absorb all the knowledge that was passed on! Will certainly give you a shout if we come to Galway.
Margaret
That was supposed to just say ‘hello’ ….. Auto correct text will be the death of me :0)
Hello
I was searching for information on Sean Sheradin’s GM talk at the Galway food Festival last Saturday and your blog turned up.
I found it the comments you made regarding the talk interesting
I am writing an extended essay for Human Geography at NUIG, it attempts to examine attitudes and perceptions regarding the treatment of the GM debate by government, vested interest groups, media and the ‘on’ or ‘off’ the agenda treatment of scientific analysis here in Ireland. I found your comments regarding the obvious absence of any pro-GM representation interesting and the anonymity of speakers, and the turn out for the talk (many turned away)
I would like to use your report in my submission as an example of the type of lack of information, unwillingness to engage in open debate, fear among politicians in declaring opposition, the ‘technocratisation’ of the debate (attempts to overule public concern with ‘scientific evidence’ and experts etc) or attempts to treat the GM debate as a ‘non-agenda’ item (If we dont talk about it, no-one will be any the wiser) and the obvious concern among ordinary people about the issue which is not being addressed by our state agencies or local government.
Would you allow me to use you report on the GM debate held at the Galway Food Festival?, please get in touch and I can clarify anything you might want to know
p.barrett1@nuigalway.ie.
Thank you,
Proinsias.
Hey Margaret thanks for following me @hookedonfoodireland – you sound like my kinda gal – Morse refs etc;) btw in Cork you are always a ‘girl’ whether you are 9 or 90 lol Anyway, having moved to the city to let the kids go to UCC I really missed my hens, so lo and behold we now have four in a city garden; no rooster though. Must keep neighbours happy, but 28 eggs a week is fab!
I look forward to seeing what you are up to in the months ahead. Are you on Twitter? A great foodie community there which I enjoy.;))
Sandra, thank you for your lovely comments! Major Morse (or even John Thaw) fan!
Yes, am on twitter… following you as (Oldefarm) but also have a personal one that I don’t use very much @margaretofarrel.
Stumbled across your blog yesterday and loved it! So glad to hear you’ve overcome your pork belly phobia!
Looking forward to lots of conversations!
Margaret
Great knowing who you are now Margaret. I love interacting with food enthusiasts on Twitter – Food, provenance, seasonality and all that are a passion of mine.
How lovely discovering your blog, I’ve been following you on twitter for nearly a year but never noticed the blog link on your site before! I know it’s hard work to run a farm but it does sound wonderful too! I hope that when I visit Ireland some day I’ll be able to visit the farm!
Hey Regula, thank you for the lovely comments. You’d be most welcome…. we’ll teach you the art of pig herding!!!
Margaret
[…] pop over and visit Zack at Irish Food Guide , Mona at Wise Words, Alfie at OldFarm , Margaret at A Year in Red Wood and Wendy at My Chef at Home. I however selflessly threw the diet out the window and sampled […]
[…] farm for the encouragement she gave me re keeping chickens! Margaret, I will be in touch : ) Click HERE for her […]
Hi Margaret, thanks for following my blog! I like the look of yours & I reckon I will have fun reading through it later 😀
Not a problem…. loved reading your blog 🙂 Looking forward to more posts.
Margaret
I stumbled on your AWESOME blog when doing research for my Very Inspiring Blogger Award.
Great blog, lovely to follow and interesting. We like using airBnB and have had some lovely experiences while doing that. Will keep yours in mind as it sounds real good. Kind regards, Agnes
Thank you so much for the kind words. And I see you are based in Gozo…. had a lovely holiday some years back, before we moved to Tipperary!
Margaret
Nice to meet you Margaret. I am glad you got to enjoy Gozo too.