The Angel of the North, believed to be the largest sculpture of an angel in the world, reduces its solitary visitor to a Lilliputian scale.
Continue reading “Angel of the North”The Prettiest Urinals – Ever!
Falling into the category of “Looscapes” or bathroom photography, these splendid floral creations are to be found in the gentleman’s toilet of a garden centre (where else!) in Ireland’s County Carlow.
Continue reading “The Prettiest Urinals – Ever!”Yellow Road
A twisty yellow farm road in the hinterland of Spain’s Andalusia. A disappearing track, the golden cornfields and slightly ominous skies, elements that reminded me of the painting, ‘Wheatfield with Crows’, by Vincent Van Gogh.

According to the Van Gogh Museum, “the painting (left) is often claimed to be his last work. The menacing sky, the crows and the dead-end path are said to refer to the approaching end of his life, but apparently it’s a myth, because he went on to make several other works after this one.
“Although Van Gogh wanted his wheatfields under stormy skies to express sadness and extreme loneliness,” some experts think he also wanted to show a healthy and fortifying countryside.
Continue reading “Yellow Road”Balance of Nature
“On the old door creepers spring,
And a stillness reigns in the air unstirred by the beat of a wild bird’s wing.
Those who see believe the old house grieves with the grief of a sentient thing.”
Paraphrased from The Deserted Homestead By Edward Dyson
Edwardian Elegance
A rest from retail therapy on a quiet Saturday afternoon in Newcastle upon Tyne.
Continue reading “Edwardian Elegance”Neptune and the River Suir
The peaceful early morning River Suir, belies the enormous ship-building yard that built the world’s first fleet of iron steam ships in the 19th century.
Continue reading “Neptune and the River Suir”Rocca Calascio
Rocca Calascio, a mountaintop fortress at 1,460 metres (4,790 ft) is the highest fortress in the Italian Apennines, overlooking the Plain of Navelli at one of the highest points in the ancient Barony of Carapelle.
Continue reading “Rocca Calascio”Wild Swimming
A lone figure on the Embalse de los Bermejelas, near Arenas del Rey, Granada Province in Spain’s Andalucia.
Continue reading “Wild Swimming”The Atlantic
From Ireland’s County Clare Coast…sea area Shannon…shipping forecast…visibility “good”
Eighty One Year Ago…
A recent look through the images scanned for my book, revealed one I’d forgotten about; it was a piece of calligraphy created by my father in 1940.
Continue reading “Eighty One Year Ago…”Le Petit Café
The delightful Art Nouveau facade of Le Petit Café de Collioure in the south of France.
Continue reading “Le Petit Café”Harvest Seeker
The “Harvest Seeker”, drifting in the ethereal early morning light while collecting Mariner’s Mussels from baskets moored on the sea bed of Waterford Harbour, a natural harbour at the mouth of three rivers.
Continue reading “Harvest Seeker”Minerve and the Cathars
A decorative wrought iron cross next to the Marie’s (mayors) office in Minerve, a village in the Hérault department of southern France in which a group of Cathars sought refuge in the village after the massacre of kinfolk at nearby Béziers in 1210.
Continue reading “Minerve and the Cathars”Architectural Points 2
The iconic roof of the new museum opened near the entrance of Dublin’s Glasnevin cemetery, soars heavenwards; and below, a marble wall reflecting a Celtic cross.
Continue reading “Architectural Points 2”Architectural Points 1
The contemporary architecture of Dublin City Council’s Civic Offices. Built on Wood Quay, the scheme caused disquiet amongst conservationists, when it became apparent that the entire plot was a major archaeological site, the very core of the Viking settlement over which Brian Boru had lost his life in the Battle of Clontarf in 1014.
Continue reading “Architectural Points 1”Stormy Seas
“Character is formed in the stormy billows of the world” …Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
The Orangery
Still in gardens, the elegant Orangery stands in gardens laid out in the first half of the nineteenth century at Fota House in County Cork, another house with a long history.
Continue reading “The Orangery”The Potting Shed
Appearing forgotten and neglected in a corner of a walled garden, the old shed is a fitting metaphor for the latter years of Strokestown House Demesne in County Roscommon.
Continue reading “The Potting Shed”Shabby Boat
Vintage, crackled, shabby paint effects on an old clinker built rowing boat in the harbour at Helvick, located in An Rinn within the Irish speaking Gaeltacht na nDeise area in County Waterford, Ireland.
Winter Sun
…floods through a window in St Patrick’s Cathedral, to illuminate one of the statues of the 18th century great and good of Dublin.
Continue reading “Winter Sun”