#awakeaugust 31

A pick me up at the end of an era, kind words, hugs and an espresso martini. A new veneer of sophistication

#awakeaugust 30

Autopilot / sleep driving.
This is my penultimate time on this route, and for lack of attention (and checking out how badly my hair is blowing around in the wind with the top down), it comes very close to being a last route anywhere. Slamming on the brakes  and pitching forward, finishing a metre off the bumper of the little read car in front. The queue for the roundabout starts so much sooner at 8am rather than 6am.

#awakeaugust 29

I have lived here twenty eight months, and only today noticed the birds at each window. The compact little body dwarfed by the swoop of wing, the jaunty beak and the backwards staring eye. How often have I gripped their mute feathers in my palm and twisted? And how cruel that they are all inside the flat, silently pleading for the wind?

Awake August facebook page here

#awakeaugust 28

The intrusiveness.
The whine, the vibrations, the buzz.
The alien against your tongue.
The sudden amplification of those sensations as the shaft bumps against another tooth in your mouth. My dentist said I should try an electric toothbrush.

#awakeaugust 27

I do still have grey flat 'rock' outside my window; cracked and lined. There are three filled trenches at the junction between the kerb and the pedestrian island, and a wider one the follows the corner and the double yellow line, fresh as butter. The white stop triangle and the hatched area are eroded, the paint only speckled in places.
I am missing the stones of the Burren

#awakeaugust 26

The appliquéd flowers on the hem of my sarong cast shadows on the wooden floor like leaves under a tree, dappling and pulsing in a soft breeze.

Awake August facebook page here

#awakeaugust 25

Between heading to the bar and waiting for the Guinness to settle, it has started to rain at my table outside the pub door. A small shower, I wrap my shawl around me and place a book over my pint and wait for the drops to pass.

#awakeaugust 24

The golden days don't come so often on the Wild Atlantic way, but when they do, oh. They are the distillation of picture postcards, the sea dancing turquoise with its white frilly knickers on display for the world. The sands are warm toast and butter. the wind runs past you, queen of the sand dunes with the green marram stalks chattering and bowing towards you.

Bella stands in the waves, all lithe backbone, her mermaids tail hidden by the surf.

#awakeaugust 23

Sitting chatting on the sand, each of us half in, half out of a wetsuit, in the swash. The upwash strong enough to push your legs, and in the backwash the bubbles scurry back to the sea, little creatures returning to their element.

#awakeaugust 22

A Yorkshire terrier, the same colour and raggedness as the piles of seaweed washed up by the tide on Traught beach. The Atlantic waters a frigid challenge under the scudding clouds. Shrieking and cursing, four of us duck under the waves.

#awakeaugust 21

At the nature sanctuary, Aoife is enthusiastic and her tongue goes faster than her memory sometimes as she explains and conveys the excitement of geography, palaeontology and botany to us; exulting and bountiful in her welcoming of us to her corner of the world.

In the rain waiting for the Galway Hookers, a pale youth with dark shaved hair squints as he smokes outside the Pier Head, wishing the two visitors dancing in the puddles to be out of his corner of the world

#awakeaugust 20

The salt sprayed meadow is sweet but hungry, it bites and gnaws at your ankles, though clover flowers bob innocently and fritillaries bounce obliviously

#awakeaugust 19

My room looks over Copper Alley, a slender street where two people would have to be very friendly to pass. Sitting on window ledges at Darkey Kelly's, two pigeons huddle out of the rain. They've never heard the maxim "don't shit on your own doorstep"

#awakeaugust 18

The shades around the old fashioned filament lights are nothing more than wire petals; some have opened and bloomed while others are still in the bud

#awakeaugust 17

acid panic
there is a small bag I need to pack for my flight tomorrow
I saw it, four or five days ago when busy tidying, organising after my new office and hallway were completed
roiling frustration

I need to calm down and then it will be found, some time today
I sit in front of the white wall and type, soothed by clickety clicking


Awake August facebook page here

#awakeaugust 16

satiated but guilty
the stretched ache of my stomach around
chicken saag and mushroom pullao


Awake August facebook page here

#awakeaugust 15

A man in a white hard hat has crawled to the apex of a roof, and peered over to the guttering below. The seagull on the adjoining roof continues to perch, watchfully.


Awake August facebook page here

#awakeaugust 14

A morning of noticing triangles and stripes/lines:

painted white metal at the edge of the staircase, reflected in glass as a sawtooth ribbon

the shape of the flags flying above the police station, the somnolent breeze tries to push out the stripes of the transgender and rainbow flags, but then they fold over, leaving  a triangle with a tail

shadows of new bright white shelves on a white wall and the pencils with their triangular shaft waiting for meon the desk

 cheese wedges sliced  for lunch

Awake August facebook page here 

#awakeaugust 13

An evening walk, breeze dropped but air crisp and alert,
Mermaid Quay is no home to sylphs or sirens, but hen parties and people who cannot decide if they want to eat pizza or not,
The funfair and beach are here to visit, but the more regular buildings remain brooding behind them, the dropping sun turning the copper leafed building to yes, gold, no other word for it, and the brag of "In these stones horizons sing" may well be true

Awake August facebook page here

#awakeaugust 12

after DIY, a soothing shower, an inventory
chipped nail varnish, tick, chipped nails, yes, also expected
an aching back, unfamiliar twisting and holding and straining
a scuffed finger joint, wine coloured scabs
a pale pink patch on my ankle, surrounded by grey blue bruising, a dropped shelf
warm water running with it's fingers on my neck


Awake August 2016 facebook page here