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Samhain Abu
I caught this cheeky chappie tangled up in a net in a café door in Galway today. I love this time of the year, with all the ghoulish decorations. There’s even a festival going on in the city this weekend called ‘Galway Aboo‘ – which is a play upon the common Irish phrase Gaillimh Abú, which means ‘Up Galway’, and is usually used as encouragement during the county’s sports competitions. I hope you’re all planning a fun, frightful weekend. There are plenty of horror films on television so I’m spoiled for choice. I’ve seen most of them several times already, so I will have to root out something I haven’t…
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first frost
These are leaves coated in the first frost of autumn. Every year I’m struck by the fact that frost and/or ice can transform the ordinary into something beautiful while also causing us bother. At least it contains the potential for joy, even if it makes us curse.
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Huguenot memories
Yesterday I posted images to my Flickr photo stream of my recent trip in Dublin. All of them were taken with the camera in my mobile phone (a Sony Xperia X10 mini – an Android smartphone). Looking through them I thought about my time living in Dublin, and the photographs I took using my first digital camera. Back then, I was using a Fuji FinePix 2.4 megapixel camera, which I referred to as Pixie. I could take images at several resolutions, but in those days (a mere 9 years ago) if you were posting photos on the web the image quality was not expected to be high, so I often…
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getting up
I woke up this morning out of unpleasant dreams with a headache. The house was chilly as the heating had only kicked on. I didn’t feel well, and the bed was warm. I lingered a little longer than usual under the cosy covers until Minnie the dog starting shuffling about nosily in her “where’s my walk?” routine. Eventually, I got myself up and out to the woods. My mood was sliding toward glum, partly because of how I was feeling, the overcast sky and damp, cold air. The light was not great for photographs, especially compared to yesterday. Then, I looked up at the clouds and noticed it wasn’t uniform.…
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back in the woods
This morning we had the first frost of autumn. My car was a icicle (or a carcicle as I call it), and my dog Minnie waited impatiently for me to defrost the windows before we drove to the woods. It was blindingly sunny. The azure skies were scrubbed of clouds. A low mist clung to the undergrowth, and ice sparkled on fading flowers and dying leaves. My favourite autumnal weather. Even though I’ve only been away from the woods for a few days it’s remarkable how quickly change takes place at this time of the year. Holly berries have appeared in great scarlet clusters. Most of the trees are sporting…
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capturing the spirit
The weather in the West of Ireland could best be described as mercurial today. As I type the wind whips the trees in my back garden and stampedes piebald clouds. A sudden, violent deluge of rain has just ended. Looking out a window at the front of my house I see sunlight streaming through an aquamarine scrap of sky. It’s a day of squalls and sun linked by rainbows. Earlier, I found one of those favourable, magical periods in between the cloudbursts to walk my dog in the woods. As usual I was taking photographs. As much as I love woodlands they are one of the most difficult landscapes to…
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novelty
Say hello to Ustulina deusta, a fungus that grows on dead trees in our forests. The quality of the picture isn’t the best (by my standards), but the light and my mobile phone camera didn’t allow for a better shot. I snapped this yesterday, because today there was heavy rain during my walk and photography would have been useless. Instead I pretended to enjoy becoming increasingly wet, and sang a couple of nonsense songs about how much I liked the rain. It was just a trick to keep me in good humour as I find it hard to be glum if I’m singing. Of course, it would be easy for…
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people are amazing
I took the above picture just over a week ago at the banks of the River Corrib, where it overlooks the Salmon Weir. The peacefulness of the scene struck me: the young man taking a break to enjoy the good weather, the view and the antics of the ducks, gulls and swans. This spot is well known to fans of the Galway Film Fleadh as it is right beside the Rowing Club, where many of the receptions during the festival take place. I was in the city attending the demonstration at the Town Hall Theatre for the National Day of Action to support the arts in Ireland. I had taken…
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frog hide
Today, I noticed this chap leaping through the undergrowth in the woods. He was shy, and I was towering above pointing my mobile phone at him, so it’s not a bad snap considering the circumstances, and the greyish light. It’s the equinox today – an unusually late one – and it’s also a full moon. Perhaps the craziness that is supposed to afflict people at this time of the month will be offset by the day being in balance. Or, you know, it might just be another bead on the year’s necklace. It was chilly this morning, a real harbinger of the deepening of autumn. Yesterday evening the daylight departed…
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Autumn
I spotted this fine fellow on my way into the woods to walk my dog this morning. It’s a good example of Coprinus comatus, also known as the shaggy ink cap or the lawyer’s wig, among others. I usually refer to it as the shaggy ink cap (or, as I misspoke this morning upon my return – the shaggy inkwell). This mushroom erupted and flourished in the mere 48 hours since my last visit to this location, or else I was singularly unobservant during my previous trip. Change can occur in a day or two, if you notice. It was the first thing I spotted on this occasion, and I…
