Fog

The words were written in pencil on a piece of paper placed on top of the body.

Whatever about another portentious Scandanavian fictional detection opening, the weather today made you expect some nasty business to be lurking in the fog. Just thirty metre visibility as cold and humid air sat, glued to the hill. I know the distance because I paced it after the dog leapt out in front of an oncoming car that had no lights and was traveling so fast that it emerged from the white curtain in the same instant it was upon us. We heard it coming yet had no sense of its direction, the noise scattered off stony walls that bound either side of the road. The dog spun on the lead and helicopter like, ended up at my feet as I caught a sheepish wave of apology or gratitude from the mindless driver. Not that any of us haven't done the same in the mundanity of our own lives.

The bluebells on Roches Hill are fading into the growing bracken, now fully 18 inches taller in just two weeks. The blue tinge beneath the fog was eerie yet somehow painterly, if that's a word.

Gus, the dog and I traipsed down to the beach and spent about 30 minutes walking in the rounded beach rubble before heading back up into the fog of low lying cloud. We passed the old and tiny Church of St. Leinin (often written like the Russian who was no saint), in use for 800 years until the seventeenth century when it fell into a disrepair that infers some sense of antiquity and grace to Killiney - Cill Iníon Léinin - church of the daughters of Leinin.

It was a long day for me that started in west London initially with a drive to Redhill in Surrey to collect bread from our favorite Chalk Hills Bakery, then past East Grinstead to collect the car with its new windscreen, disks and tyres from Munich Legends. We then drove from Crowborough to Holyhead arriving one hour late having lost an hour and a half behind some bad 'incidents' including a vehicle fire on the M6 near Stoke. So we missed the Jonathan Swift fast ferry at 1715 and had to rebook onto the Ulysses at 240 am. We found a hotel room (the kind that supplies both room key and TV remote at reception), grabbing a Sri Lankan influenced dinner at Mala's, all in Holyhead, before catching three hours sleep. Then, out the fire escape by prior arrangement since all doors are locked at 1am, we emerged to drive past a brace of ambulances arriving at a drunken melee where folk were still fighting on the streets. We were the last to board the ferry not because we were late but because there were so few cars on this the biggest ferry in Europe. Eventually, we emerged bleary eyed in Dublin at 615. An easy crossing made awkward only by the hour.

My knees were sore after the 440 mile drive, I was short sleep but thought it a good idea to walk in a vague simulation of the Three Peaks which happens this day week. This is my last blog until then and I'm sure it will be a few days after the event when I compose and publish the last blog of all. Custard pies and air the ticket raffle are the last events before we set off. An amazing milestone of £13,000 was reached this week and who knows, maybe we'll reach £15,000 with donations from the readers of this blog, if there are any.

It was James Ellroy who wrote about shooting up by TV light in American Tabloid.

Peaking

I had a wonderful drive from Dublin to Lisvarrinane in Cork to start (and end) the day. A trip to walk in The Galtee Mountains with the Ballyhoura Bears as part of The Ballyhoura Walking Festival. I had seen it mentioned in the papers a few months ago and decided if I was in Ireland and the weather was at all good, I would do their Seven Peak Challenge as the last big fitness test before the Scottish Three Peaks.

Atop Farbreaga

I made it up Farbreaga, Greenane, Galtybeg and Galtymore. Four peaks of the seven possible. After six and half hours, I was relieved that our guides took us down, leaving Slievecushnabinnia, Carrignabinnia and Lyracappul for another day. The Ballyhoura Bears were so welcoming and hostpitable that I intend to return. I was sorry for them that only twenty five people turned up for a walk that had drawn ninety in the past though someone told me over three hundred had registered for the overall walking festival (reduced numbers perhaps due to competing walking events and the unusual alignment of Easter and May Day giving people the opportunity for two week holidays, like me).

The Old Red Sandstones and Conglomerates being heavily jointed form blocky, rectangular shapes that contrast with the rounded granites I'm used to walking in Dublin and Wicklow. The soft heather, mossy, boggy ground was a tougher walking surface than I am conditioned for - too many degrees of rotation for ankles, knees and hips. The weather was good. Yes it was windy at times. Yes it drizzled on and off throughout the first five hours. Yes it was cold at times. Yes it was hazy. But from the top of the mountains, the views of the coums was exhilarating - lunch overlooking Muskry, snacks over Borheen and Diheen and then over Curra, some random walker was handing out Barley Water sweets saying they gave great energy boosts. A group of Chinese walkers sitting in the shelter of Galtybeg seemed incongruous at first sight because I was with locals who were more mountain goat than bear. 

Borheen Lough

I was last up most of the climbs, slower than the sweeper would have wanted. I zig-zagged my way up and eventually down. But on the other surfaces I was well able to stay at the front (of the slowest group, mind). People offered me their walking poles ('all our best walkers use them'). I was offered food and sweets and lots of verbal encouragement. I asked one lady how often she did this walk and was stunned when she said two and maybe three times a week. Then I began to feel a lot better, this being my first. I was among people who helped saying I was lucky it was not raining, it's often much wetter underfoot, the wind at your back is better than in front.  Meeting these people, it was as if "their lives had been one long vigorous walk". It seems OK to quote from Elizabeth Bowen ('The Easter Egg Party' 1938) because of her links with Farahy just the other side of Mitchelstown.

Munster's loss to the Harlequins in the League seemed more important than Leinster's fantastic win in the Heineken Cup Semi Final. I later listened to full pub cheers, with tea and ham sandwich in hand, when Kilkenny hurlers scored a goal against Dublin. Dan Breen has a memorial across the road from the muster point at Moroney's pub in Lisvarrinane - even the civil war didn't seem that long ago today. While Dublin felt a long way off, the M8 motorway was said to be the only good thing to result from The Celtic Tiger.

Shame

The trial was irretrievably over; everything that could be said had been said, but he had never doubted that he would lose.

Sugar Loaf

An opening from a recently heralded trio of books that were all the more curious for being published posthumously.  And a walk that was just too long for my companion. At ten, following a sleepover with almost no sleep, 7.5 km climbing up towards Djouce from Curtlestown via the Glencree River was just too much. The scenery at the splendid lookout to Powerscourt Waterfall didn't matter once the tiredness took over and that happened at 7.5 km which meant there was still 7.5 km to walk back to the car. Mostly downhill but still way too much especially since it the entire walk took over five hours. Still, we had a memorable picnic in a hollow tree.

The walk didn't kill him but herons, trout in the streams, grazing deer, our first cuckoo and kestrels were lost in his tiredness. I've said sorry. So has he.

There were some shameful things to see in the Glencree River; beer cans, shopping trolleys, plastic bags and assorted discards left by careless people. And then as we were watching little trout darting in the light dappled waters, a rubber suited, river walking troupe appeared - they seemed to be panning for gold - their activity seemed barbaric when you consider the wildlife in that protected beauty spot. 

VS Naipul told us that men who are nothing have no place in our world in opening A Bend in the River (back in blog 12, Forge).

Dandelion

Tom and the Perfectionist sit in the designated waiting area of Gate 23, Terminal two, Lester B. Pearson International airport.

Among the more odd books I've read recently, Tom and the Perfectionist will be obscure unless you've heard about it. Whereas I suspect many have read The Time Traveller's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger that opened in the cool marble library that smelled of carpet cleaner back in the Proxigee post in late March.

Today was a short walk to Killiney beach with the dog. Clear and photogenic, I used the iPhone to capture dandelions while Gus was off harrying other walkers by the shore. I was trapped by a problem with my car that prevented a drive to the mountains. There were lots of other things to do so the walk was only five km.

Ballyteige

Robert Frost made his visit in November of 1960, just a week after the general election.

A 30 km walk (without a break) on another section of the Wicklow Way; 15 km each way from the head of the Ow River to Mangans, the car parked in the same spot as the last walk. I have to say it was boring. Very boring. It started with a climb through beech and the occasional azalea in Ballyteige Lodge and then along roads into Coilte plantations of larch and spruce. After that first hour, most of the walk was on sealed blacktop; hard on the eyes and feet, both. There was some respite in the form of the odd pretty glade, some soft views across green fields of sheep with lambs, often framed in yellow blooming gorse. It was not raining; a small mercy. I seem to have climbed 860 m which could explain why it took me thirty minutes more than the five hours I had expected. And I walked the last 30 minutes without GPS - not sure why it was lost again; seems to happen when the iPhone roams to the Vodafone network.

By far the most interesting thing was the diversity of mountain and townland names; Ballinagappege Mountain, Carrigamuck, Knockanooker, Knocknashamroge, Corndog, Ballycumber and Coolafunshoge, where I turned back, just short of Tinahely.

I saw only eleven other walkers, two runners and two cyclists in the whole walk. Proof that it was too boring to waste a public holiday unless of course, you were going from one interesting section to another.

And on closing, another opening: it was in The Suspicions of Mr Whicher by Kate Summerscale that Samuel and Mary Kent slept through the first line.

Drumgoff

Kilroy was here?

Maria hardly registered what was happening during the funeral.

This, the 27th post opens with yet another Scandanavian crime writer. Robert Clinch, who rolled out of bed to open the 15th post was from Double Whammy by Carl Hiaasen.

The goal of this walk was 25 km in 5 hours or less. It also needed some climbs and so I chose the Wicklow Way, south from Drumgoff. To get there, I drove up the Avoca Valley from Arklow to park at Ballyteige, beside the Ow River. And walked Ballyteige to Drumgoff and back. And I did it in 5 hours. Exactly despite the loss of phone and GPS signal that confused the Walkmeter.

I followed a Merlin, or pigeon hawk for a short while. It was flying fast and hugging the ground, trapped by the walled road and the overhead enclosing tree canopy. I hadn't seen one for over thirty years and doubted my recollection of its habits until I checked the books.

I came upon a bus tour of geriatric but cheery hill walkers who all said hello. I lost my enthusiasm for their greetings after twenty-five hellos as they passed me in single file on rocky ground. I saw few other people which surprised me considering how beautiful it was.

Kippure

The August heat was slipping away with the day.

Another crime novel opening. And we can close the heat felt by the Parisians in the opening line of Suite Francaise by Irène Némirovsky, from the Skyline post in Februrary.

MiniMan checks the compass

Which is not to say the walk up Kippure was on a hot day - it was warm, the gauge in the car registered 23 C. The absolute highlight was the group of a dozen Sika deer that appeared as we crossed a stream. They lay, sat and stood and watched us for about twenty minutes before I got greedy for a closer photo. We watched two head butting and could hear the rattle of their horns though it seemed to be amicable sparring rather than any aggressive dominant male thing.

If the deer were a highlight, the dumped computers and other appliances on the edge of the Wicklow Mountains National Park was a disgraceful nadir. I thought we'd tidied this up and moved on.

At the summit, we crossed the county border between Dublin and Wicklow several times. We admired the hazy view as we snacked on BLT sandwiches (which is when I learned that MiniMan would not eat lettuce or tomato). The huge communications antenna fingered the sky above us, tethered by some serious cables, all of which is the ugly side of being in a wilderness that is only 15 minutes from a city of one million people.

We covered 10 km in about 5 hours, an ascent of 350 m. The deer reappeared on the descent as did some snipe, several we heard creeching on a skylark sound stage, one we saw zigging and zagging away from us.

Lug

Pereira maintains he met him one summer's day.

Ballinaskea

This opening line includes an eponymous clue - Tim Winton's Cloudstreet, back in the fifth post, engaged us by asking that we look at them by the river.

For this walk, we were three and had parked in Glenmalure just below the Youth Hostel and headed up towards Lugnaquillia, the Lug, Ireland's second highest mountain, 925 m amsl. We found a red flag to indicate live firing in Glen Imaal Artillery Range so we chose to walk under the cliffs in Fraughan Rock Glen.

It was a spectacularly beautiful day with a vista limiting haze but windless and warm. Warm enough that we worried about the tadpoles being boiled alive in the evaporating puddles on the loggers road. Warm enough that sunscreen was required after we took our jackets off. Warm enough that Red Hugh's frostbitten toes seemed unreal as did the methods we imagined might have been used to remove them, without anesthetic, all relevant because it was to the sanctuary of the O'Byrnes here in Glenmalure that he was brought that winter in 1593.

We clambered up beside the falling stream,  framed by fallen, logged timbers. It was ankle twisting and knee jarring both up and down but quite manageable if you kept your eyes on the ground. MiniMan did a deal and we stopped shortly after the Walkmeter angel announced the two hour mark. Which found us just below the North Prison at the Lug, bracketed between Benleagh to the north and Corrigasleggaun to the south. We'll be back one day, maybe soon. 

Spink

I'm going to die.

Confuse the colour blind

Which is what the MiniMan said while we did an 8 km walk up the Spink. The Spink is the well known mountain in Glendlough that overlooks the Upper Lake, where we first wandered to watch mallard. Our real attempt at the Spink started from the Information Centre, where we saw foxes, mink and a host of other stuffed animals illustrative of local fauna. We were already about 100 m above mean sea level and followed the red trail up past Pollanass Waterfall. The walk is not hard but the very steep steps are tiring. Old railway sleepers, laid end on end like overlapping dominoes - we decided that Domino Spink was the name of an arch criminal, punishing us cruelly.

We reached the Spink and carried on along the white trail to the 4 km point, where we had a picnic at the highest point, about 500 m amsl according to WalkMeter. The haze restricted the views but the lake was very pretty. We could see to the reservoir at Turlough Hill but not much more than that. Our binoculars were worth the carry when we watched some deer grazing on the other side of the valley and my companion even saw a fox go into a hole, presumably its den. A raven was quartering the area, gliding in the light airs and seemed to be keeping a careful eye on our fruit.

No Walking on Water

We talked about Red Hugh O'Donnell from Donegal and Art and Harry O'Neill from Ulster who escaped from Dublin Castle in January 1593, the only people ever to do so. We were looking down on the place where it is said that Art died of exposure and Red Hugh got frostbite that took his big toes. 

We finished after three hours with a well deserved 99, the ice cream cone and chocolate flake embellished with both lime and raspberry ripples.

Today's opening line comes from a Scandanavian crime novel that was written in 2002, translated in 2009 and published in English in 2009. And back in the February post called Aftershock, it was Margaret Foster who was trying to understand in her novel Over. 

Sunday

A splash of light from the late-afternoon sun lingered at the foot of Nariman's bed as he ended his nap and looked towards the clock.

This starter is an opening line from a four time Booker short lister. By the way, it was Anne Enright who told us about what happened in her grandmother's house the summer she was eight or nine in The Gathering, for which she won the Booker Prize in 2007.

Gorse and sea

We walked from Greystones fire station around Bray Head and back - about 8.5 km. It was another glorious day and there were lots of other Sunday walkers dressed as Sunday walkers do, in contrast to our hill walking, back packing practices. We were adorned with whistle and compass, booted and carrying rain gear. Their men were carrying children piggy-back, many of their women in pumps and tights, their dogs running free.

At one point, we sat high above railway tracks, near the Brandy Hole where smugglers did their thing all those years ago. We had a snack and watched fulmars and kittywakes glide up the cliff faces on the up-draughts from the sea where cormorants, shags and maybe guillemots (but perhaps razorbills) busied themselves on the flat water. 

Ten year old curiosity seemed satisfied after we discussed how a marina ended up in NAMA, using the purchase of a DS to illustrate how easy it is to suddenly owe 40 euro (or 40 million). His experience doesn't yet comprehend how hard he will have to work to pay these debts.

Greystones

In the early hours of Friday, 29 June 1860 Samuel and Mary Kent were asleep on the first floor of their detached three-story Georgian house above the village of Road, 5 miles from Trowbridge.

By the way, it was The Reader by Bernhard Schlink who got hepatitis within the opening line.

I decided to walk to Greystones and this time I did. I took some time out to lie on my back at Hackettsland beside a colony of sand martins. Industrious colonists, they nest in burrows on vertical sand faces. Not a recipe for long term survival you'd think until you realise how many glacial moraines there are in northwest Europe. I realised that I was watching their courtship rituals in full swing. The females fly into their burrows, high up on the sandy channels preserved in the vertical faces of eroded terminal moraines, where they are joined by a few hopeful mates. The males fly to the entrances where they hover, their wings almost invisible to me in the blur of the effort needed to keep them in a stationary position. Then they land on the vertical face, often holding onto fine rootlets that drape down like a natural chiffon, invisible from almost any distance. The females seem to watch and before they get too far, the whole colony takes to the air. This happened so often that I realised it was the planes passing overhead that was spooking them, not the sound but their peregrine like shape.

And I walked on to Bray and had a snack at the end of the pier watching the swans. And then a latte at the other end of the famous promenade before taking off up the hill and across to Greystones. The failed marina, the undeveloped prime development properties, the hoardings that cordon them off from the Excalibur Drive, a 50 km route supposed to take you through some of the most spectacular Wicklow landscape, all degrade the Blue Flag Beach and seemingly affluent main street. Greystones has signs that promise they will be tidying up the town soon - how terminal and depressing. Then I bought a train ticket to go home, 15 km added to the 25 yesterday, except there was no train for 45 minutes. Terminal (pun intended).

Harbours

The blow catches him from the right, sharp and surprising and painful, like a bolt of electricity, lifting him up off the bicycle.

I decided to walk to Greystones and instead I walked to Bray, a lot closer yet I walked further than I intended. Why? Because it was such a beautiful day that I decided to change my walk when I looked over the sea from the top of Dalkey Quarry. I realised the tide was going out and I could cross the beaches more easily at low tide, so I needed to delay an hour or so. Which gave me the idea to have a walk that included five harbours. I headed north to Dun Loaghaire Harbour and walked out to the lighthouse at the end of the east pier. And then back south to Bulloch Harbour and up through Dalkey where I stopped in Muggs for a 10 km break, a latte and a rocky road on the side. I sat outside in the sun, watching the occasional nice car drive by. Then after some Vaseline for the chaffing, I was off again to Coliemore Harbour.

Hitchcock?

The weather was spectacularly hazy yet opulently shimmering in the effulgence of Spring, twinkling brights added by the budding rhododendron candles and blackthorn confettis. All the time, the sea was like glass, rippled by the sea birds, the shrill crys of the terns of counterpointed with the muted sounds of the oscillating waters lapping on the beach.

I had done 24 km by the time I reached Bray Harbour and decided to take the train home. The railway station had four huge billboards but only one carried an ad.

It was David Park's book The Truth Commissioner that opened saying he'd never been where he'd never been in the first post on this blog. 

Flowers

In the beginning there was a river.

Another Booker winner opens this, the twentieth post. An earlier post, starting with 'a radiant late afternoon' was written in 1932 by Georges Simenon; an interesting Maigret novel, The Bar on the Seine. Not that it was easy to work out but it was translated and re-issued in 2006. I used it to defeat the googlers among you.

A day after getting rain gear and making 'Taranaki' mackerel for dinner, we walked about eight kilometres amid the bursting colours of spring. The virtual flowers shown here are for Mother's Day. Even Gus, that enthusiastic hound, got out for a run, reined in by a short leash to keep him from going under passing cars.

There were lots of families out walking. Spring or Mother's Day rewards, who knows? The route was positively mall-crowded by comparison to recent weeks.

Down at Coliemore Harbour, the neoprene brigade were snorkling back and forth across the sound to Dalkey Island, all done safely at low tide, avoiding the dangerous tidal rips.

Fund raising update: we are close to £10,000 and certain to exceed it. Car washing, henna tattoos, the curry quiz night and overeating at the bake sales have all done their part.

All blog photos are originals, taken with my iPhone, edited with Camera+ and posted through Picasa.

42

She arrived early in March, the plane landing at Katunayake airport before dawn.

I woke after the spring forward loss of one hour to the church bells ringing. I counted 123456789 all the way up to 42 bells, a marathon distance - a sign. I looked out and saw the magpie tree - nine birds at nearly nine o'clock - another sign. Downstairs, I enjoyed toasted sourdough bread with peanut butter, an orange and strong coffee while looking out on perfect weather. Too many signs to resist.

I imagined three goals (Ireland 2 Macedonia 1 perhaps):  get to sea level thrice, see several of the more interesting local houses for sale and walk at least 16 km. Let's go.

Up to the Killiney obelisk, cold in the haze. Across to Dalkey quarry - lots of climbers - some mountain rescue practice - down The Metals - women walking dogs and babies. I passed another magpie tree with five casing the area. On to Hillside where a brace of goldfinches perched in the bare branched budding shrubs - and down to Newtownsmith and several Sandycove kayaks, scuba divers, swimmers, more joggers and cyclists - to Joyce's Tower and the Forty Foot. Some religious fervour in a front garden (a photo I put onto yesterday's post). Across to Bulloch Harbour, empty, the boats being anti-fouled on the hard stand. Up to Dalkey, past several flavours of Christian church, filling and filled for Sunday services. Back up to Telegraph Hill via what we called Millionaire's Row in the 1970s. And down by the Cat's Ladder, on down Vico Road via Nerano to Coliemore were more divers had come ashore. And then back up to the obelisk by Vico where the sunny morning had enticed joggers, strollers, coffee walkers and even some kung fu fighters in practice that looked like dancers in among the pine tree. A drink listening to Norwegian cyclists, a snack quickly taken because of the chill on sweaty clothes and warming fast back down to Killiney Beach where after a quick inspection of the sea, I turned and trudged back up the alleys to the top of Roches Hill from where it was a very easy walk home. About 17 1/2 km on three ascents (500 vertical m) chosen to test my stamina, which is not great but surely improving.

So many thoughts and memories - the multicoloured heather - the elegant and well-dressed young woman in black with the two cute puppies - the Weimaraner that wanted to "play" with the Scottie by picking it up - the views into Jaguared front gardens exposed for now by the plant cull after the deep freeze of our last winter - the not yet fully disgraced banker walking en famille - the chalk inscriptions that led to Bono's house - the cherry blossom - yet more cherry blossom - the feeling that this is a beautiful place to be, underlined by returning to Sky News still reporting various forms of unrest in Libya and Japan with which anarchist riots in London and Portuguese insolvency cannot compete.

It was Hilary Mantel who opened Booker winning Wolf Hall with "So now get up". 

Pablum

A grey bird glided in and out of Harry's field of vision.

Welcome to today's pablum. It'll be a short description of a seven kilometre walk to the butcher for a chicken. I felt a bit odd carrying this chicken around on my back for so long, remembering Douglas Adams description of a trip to visit Komodo Dragons in his book, Last Chance to See.

"Despite the fact that an Indonesian island chicken has probably had a much more natural life than one raised on a battery farm in England, people who wouldn't think twice about buying something oven-ready become much more upset about a chicken that they've been on a boat with, so there is probably buried in the Western psyche a deep taboo about eating anything you've been introduced to socially."

I understand that white lions, in Lion Park near Cape Town are fed chickens too.

Other than walking, looking and talking (all very rewarding), I was thinking about mandative subjunctives and the post positive intensive adjective - a form of insanity perhaps. Anyway, I had insisted that we take this this big-ass walk to get the chicken and I was determined to understand its grammar, of the sentence that is. So the mandative subjuncive is me insisting we take whereas the intensive (post positive, of course) is the ass.

So how are we doing with first lines? Did you catch the boy called Santiago in The Alchemist by Paolo Coelho?

Fairies

I still remember the day my father took me to the Cemetery of Forgotten Books for the first time.

Another opening line, this easy to identify if you have heard about let alone read the book. So which of the previous incipits was from Georges Simenon's 1932 classic, The Bar on the Seine?

Today's walk started in Marlay Park in Dublin and took in the first 8 km of the Wicklow Way up to the microwave towers at Three Rock Mountain and on to Fairy Hill. A linear walk, we covered about 15 km in ideal, beautiful conditions accompanied from time to time by other walkers, BMXers and pony trekkers. While in the park, we passed the Fairy Tree in both directions, lots of notes pinned to it by kids. From notes of gratitude for helping them recover from illness, to notes of pleading for parental reconciliation, the tree was also decorated in Mardi Gras style with beads and ribbons. When we returned, there were two gardeners adding lichen and other mystical plants to the tree. I joked that I had thought it all real and the guy the holding the ladder told me they were real fairies.


You can see the walk in Google Maps here or you can track them in Facebook where Walking Commentary posts the feed from the iPhone app Walkmeter. Imagine, the phone battery died on the way back today; the iPhone reputation for battery life is well deserved. The walk appears truncated but we did make it back.

The fund raising is going really well. We have wildly exceed the required £3000, passing £8300 on the way to our new goal of £10,000 (and then "on to infinity and beyond"?). We are hugely pleased by everyone's generosity since Care and other charities are not getting the bullish support they once did; these recessionary times have made charity more difficult. Our baking, car washing and other office-centric activities have been really well supported. Now it's time to try other sponsorship avenues, meaning you (dear reader, assuming you exist).

Proxigee

Clare: The library is cool and smells like carpet cleaner, although all I can see is marble.

I repeated, roughly, the hill and beach walks of the last few weekends, with the emphasis on flights of steps. I covered about 9 km alone (with about 200 m of vertical steps) and then another 3 km with my companion from yesterday. I started of in early sunrise haze and finished in mid-morning full sun, at about 15C; the first time I felt Spring had arrived

Insecure Vandals 

Which was interesting to me because I was watching a few people swim at White Rock and I wondered if they knew the sea was probably the coldest it ever gets, the water temperature in the Irish Sea lagging the air by about three months. The guy in the wet suit with the boogie board seemed unconcerned but another guy in ambitious Bahama shorts went blue after about four minutes, fled from the sea and stood shivering hard in his towel.

I also wondered if the swimmers realised they were swimming in an extreme Proxigean Spring  Tide, the tide rising about almost a meter higher than normal because of the coincidence of the full moon syzygy and a lunar perigee. I hardly saw the full moon last night, hidden as it was behind the clouds that delivered the rain to Landsowne Road that helped complete the rout of the English rugby team, providing our new stadium with its first great memory. The tidal thing won't concern and may even mystify those who live in Kansas, Kazakhstan or Kenadsa and think the sea is a waste of space. The tide was so high that I had to climb over the jutting rocks that separate Killiney and White Rock Beaches, where the granite is in direct contact with the country rock, now schists.

Contact

Today's dog walkers on the beach filed past, ever polite. A nod of recognition or even words of sympathy (rarely apology) when the snarling or barking dog harasses you, as two did today. Perhaps the Latin words like equinox, perigee or the vandalised beach buildings were suggestive but I kept thinking of the walkers as Romans (not quite troops), walking in their straight lines and armed with (tennis ball) slings or launchers that looked like short swords drawn and ready for action. The allusion fails when I note most had earbuds in place to avoid actually hearing natural sounds of breaking waves and birds.


So which opening line was from Pompeii by Robert Harris?

Climb

View: Sugar Loaf to Killiney

A radiant late afternoon.

My companion (9 and 363/365ths) had this to say about climbing the Sugar Loaf: we parked the car in the car park and we we could see the mountain and the tiny figures already on top. We started to walk to the shoulder. We had to climb because it was so steep. It was very rocky. We saw a raven. And larks ascending, singing all the way until they went invisible, though they kept singing after we couldn't see them anymore. And a fierce mountain dog - he was shrunk to handbag size by starvation; he was looking for inattentive children to eat so he could become a big dog again. And three motorbikes racing and we could smell their oil. And so many people walking that it was like a shopping trip because the parents were carrying their kids. Then we went home to play with Lego Minotaurs. You can make your own dice. 

Oystercatchers

On the morning of January 6, two hours before dawn, a man named Robert Clinch rolled out of bed and rubbed the sleep from his eyes.

I felt like a bit like that opening line this morning before my coffee. It was a beautiful day in Dublin and I went for two walks. The first was about four km and it was a typical early morning in south County Dublin in that it was clear, the time before the cloud blows in. It was also cold, perhaps zero centigrade, the pavement littered with delicate pink, frost-knocked blossoms. Snowdon was clearly visible across the Irish Sea from Killiney Hill, a reminder of Ireland's unearned rugby defeat in Cardiff yesterday. Gus, mindlessly enthusiastic, ran out in front of a car, signalling an overdue return to the leash and home, ending the first walk.

The second walk was about 11 kilometres, roughly the same as the last one on Friday, with lots of steps. I took to collecting photos of postboxes (in progress) and listening in passing to snatches of other walkers' conversations, coincidentally all involved money - the two fast walking 40s something women: 'we'll have to sell the house in Oporto' - the stressed 50's something parents: 'he can't eat our food if he has enough money for wine' - the nervous 20s something son and unflappable father figure: 'really, that should be enough to see it through' - and the 30s something mother to hers, hidden in a pile of coats on the beach: 'you don't have to give them all lobster sandwiches!' as their toddler toddled oblivious in the sand and I wondered if the sense of 'all' was crowd or purity.

Then I got a Facebook post from New York post about food poisoning. It beeped on arrival to my iPhone as I was looking at a group of about ten  oystercatchers walking in front of me (causing ironic linking thoughts about poison and oysters). It took the birds quite some time to decide I was too close. So I photo'd the birds with the phone as they took off, edited the picture as best I could in mid-morning glare on my phone and then uploaded it, hoping to bring cheer to the miserable. All while walking. 

It's time to start acknowledging the writers of the first lines, perhaps making this first revelation easy. Which opening line was from A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian by Marina Lewycka?

Beach

They left the aqueduct two hours before dawn, climbing by moonlight into the hills overlooking the port - six men in single file, the engineer leading.

This opening line marks the start of the 13th of these walks. No links to anything, just another book I read recently.

Today's walk can be seen in Google Maps, here if you want. Most of my walks are discoverable in the same place. It was drizzling most of the way, cold enough for gloves for the first hour and thereafter, wet, particularly so once I fell in the sea. After climbing across the granite/schist contact that separates White Rock and Killiney strands, I was walking in the shoals of wave washed glacial till that cover Killiney Beach. I chose the walk to have lots of different surfaces to help train my legs; steep steps, grass, heavy pebble beach and some climbing over huge boulders. Anyway, I needed to catch my breath and decided to take a picture at the water's edge. The undertow sucked the pebbles from under my feet. I had the iPhone in photo mode. Over and in I went, the phone too. I grabbed the phone as a small wave broke over us and it still worked. My rain gear kept most of the water out though my pockets and shoes did fill up. It felt strange after spending an hour watching TV coverage of today's tsunami in Japan.

I walked as far as the Shanganagh River, turning back at the mariners marker I now call Aaronisbent after the griffito in today's photo. I covered 10 km in about 150 minutes and it was tiring because I have not been walking enough. There's barely two months before the Scottish Three Peaks so I need to redouble my training and my quest for sponsorship, now at 63% of our initial £3000 goal, which we had hoped to beat by raising closer to £10,000.

Forge

The world is what it is; men who are nothing, who allow themselves to become nothing, have no place in it.

Forge in mock HDR

The sun rose for the 20,447th time and as ever, I missed it. I took a lift to Aughrim in Wicklow and went for a ten kilometre walk. The red-doored town forge enhanced the granite grey, under a grey-skied drizzle in the thin fog of cloud that keeps the Ow and Derry rivers watered. The tree- felled river banks, the logs haphazardly scattered among the water logged wheel furrows, resembled a  narrow margin of abused countryside. The smell of burning wood lingered in the windless valley, the chimney smoke thickening the grey air.

It was cold and I walked up through a Coilte plantation, into the cloud at 150 m and the world disappeared.