sunset
slow beats in the slow sunset
warm sticks held in heated hands
Pontycymer, Glamorgan, South Wales
7th July 2016
Category: solas
Queen’s Park
A frost meadow lies between the spreading oak trees and the slim birches, great palmfuls of leaves papering over the dew-sharpened blades, each of which is itself furred by myriad tiny hairs of frost, glittering in the first light, sun upon sword upon sward.
Queen’s Park, Glasgow, Scotland
23rd February 2016
the wee things
It’s the wee things, always the wee things. Whether in the middle of the daily routine or swept up in a great adventure, it’s the small gesture which catches us and which somehow, surprisingly, completes.
On the moortop, the stretching views and snow-struck hills are focused into the tiny buffeting of a small white downy feather caught in the yellowed grass. On the sea, the rough grace of the Minch is collected into the handful of froth thrown up by a rogue wave slapping us broadside, which catches the sun before it falls, making a momentary rainbow.
Beauty blooms so quickly.
Cwm Garw, Glamorgan, South Wales / The Minch, north-west Scotland
11th February 2016
backlight
Pontycymer, Glamorgan, South Wales
20th January 2016
the box of delights
The internet is my box of delights. Today I opened an advent calendar story about a handmade angel on the top of a Christmas tree. I found a turfed roundhouse to buy in a wooded Welsh valley. I discovered that Switzerland is holding a referendum on stopping banks controlling the money supply. I saw taiko drumming in the golden haze of dim London lamps. I wrote to friends and recalled shared memories. I remembered other times. I imagined other times. I glimpsed other places.
And all while I sat here at a small stained table in our unheated and unfinished upstairs room, quietly warmed by bright wavelengths of electronic light and the variousness of the world, until I closed the laptop lid and carried it away. Such a portable portal. What will it open next?
Pontycymer, Glamorgan, South Wales
12th December 2015
the sun
The sun is a foreign thing, rising surprisingly from a puffy cloud on the Irish sea, limpid, lucent and pale, pale golden; a strange foreign thing, washing itself through rushes of rain as the car ferry reaches the shore, then flooding the low southern fields till all is glowing, green glowing, like a secret spring in the middle of winter.
Four, five, six weeks, we’ve had a drought of light, living dimly in the grey-ceilinged cloud of our Welsh valley, yet over here on Irish shores we are travelling the day with this bright foreign thing, following its arc as it slowly unwinds around the gentle Irish slopes, and gratefully soaking in its warm lustre.
It cools though, as it unwinds, as it gradually wanes, now sinking over the tidal river, tangling itself in the dark brown trees, anchoring itself in the muddy earthen banks. Down it goes, its illumination now cold and white. Oh, but still – illumination!
Drake’s Pool, Crosshaven, County Cork, Ireland
10th December 2015
illumination
Inishmore, Aran Islands, Ireland / Inis Mór, Oileáin Árann, Éire
19th September 2015
length
Cwm Garw, Glamorgan, South Wales
8th June 2015
The Minch
A grey afternoon and a blue evening slowly turning to gold. Out on the Minch, the sun has set behind the highest hill on Harris and, with its heat withdrawing, I climb inside to escape the twilight chill.
The wind is fair but the waters are choppy. Outside, I sat on the sunlit sidedeck and rolled with the boat as it lolled and leapt in the waves. Below deck, the motion feels less kind and I keep a low profile to keep my nausea down, lying out flat on the port-side berth.
I feel the loss of the sun, our companion star, sunk to starboard as we sail south. It’s when the sun goes down that I feel lonely on the sea. However, as the darkness thickens, my eye is caught by a streak of light out of one of the starboard portlites. A shooting star? A satellite? No, it’s Venus diving down the night, or seeming to, as we lurch up and down the waves.
All stars are shooting stars when seen through the portlites – veering down, and shooting back up as the boat rises and falls; pinpointed lasers tracking the brief windows of sky before the waves rear up to engulf the view. We’re rolling in wet hills of water but the stars fly up and stream around the peaks.
The Minch, North-west Scotland
13th May 2015
shaving
Pontycymer, Glamorgan, South Wales
27th April 2015