Bandstand

Reflection

I didn’t get any fiction up this weekend due to being sick – but I’ll hopefully get something up during the week! In the meantime, here are a few more pictures I took by the canal last week.

Under Foot

I absolutely love this time of year. Sure, the days are quickly shortening, and we have maybe less sunshine and more rain than in the summer (though this year the summer was so awful there was no perceptible change except in the temperature). But there’s something about the clear light, the crisp mornings, the autumn colours, that set my heart pumping with joy.

I was laden down with a full backpack and my camera in my handbag when I stepped out into the street on Saturday afternoon. The sun had just come out and the street was lit up, pavements covered with fallen leaves. I just had to heave everything off my back and take some pictures.

I put my camera into a more accessible area in my bag and continued on my towards the canal – the way to my boyfriend’s flat. I took a few more photos on the way.

It’s funny, I seem to always become more active at this time of the year when everything is dying and declining. There are a lot of squirrels around my neighbourhood at the moment – one particular friend hangs around in my back garden every day, burying nuts in the flowerbeds for winter. Sometimes I feel like those squirrels – a scurry of creative activity spurred by the dropping temperatures and falling leaves.

So for the moment I am very happy – I am writing more and taking more photographs than ever before, and it feels as if the rest of my life is truly starting.

Canal

Fuchsia

I ended up staying at my parents’ longer than I thought, so I’ve yet to take the camera on an excursion, though it is now in my flat. However, I got a few pictures the other day in the garden that I was happy with. It was sadly the last day in a stretch of nice weather that we’ve had – it has since got a bit cold and cloudy. But I’m holding out for more sunshine – I don’t mind it getting a little colder, but the more sun, the happier and more creative I am.

It was quite windy on the day I took these, and Bumble was having a wonderful time sitting watching everything move about in the wind.

The fuchsia plants are some of the only flowers left blooming in the garden, but even they are falling now. It makes for some very pretty patterns on the ground, though.

I’m hoping to get some “exotic” pictures tomorrow – i.e. from my flat rather than my parents’ house. I’m definitely starting to get to grips with the new camera, but still a bit more practice to go before I’m completely comfortable with it!

Approaching

The rain is coming.

Heavy grey mist like a swarm

moves over the sea.

September sun

Fox

The body was unmarked, undamaged, laid out in such a way that it might have been asleep. He started and hesitated when he saw it, for a moment thinking that it might wake and run away. But something about the way the fox was stretched out on its side, its felt-like ears pointed forward and unmoving, made him realise.

Someone had obviously moved the corpse, placing it on the grass verge of the narrow path over the railway bridge. It was a strange place for roadkill – the side of a footpath, where the only roads nearby were through a small housing estate on one side of the bridge, and the town’s church car park on the other. A car in the night, perhaps, had swung through the estate too fast, seeing the darting fox too late – but why carry the body so far from the road? He thought of poison, but this was somehow too upsetting to contemplate. The swift blow of a car bumper, the sudden stunning flash of the bright headlights, before everything went dark – it seemed more dignified. The thought of a slow, choking death was too gruesome to contemplate.

He had been living in that suburban housing estate for over twenty years, and was accustomed to the autumn surge of wildlife activity. Foxes would regularly steal across his garden, going unseen but for the flick of a tail as they dashed through the fence. And in the past couple of years there seemed to be a new colony of grey squirrels furrowing their way into the landscape. But he had never before seen a dead animal in this neighbourhood. These tragedies usually belonged to motorways and dark country roads – badgers, rabbits, and the occasional unfortunate cat.

He was not a sentimental man, but something about this poor animal brought a sting to his eyes. The thick, healthy coat, perhaps. The perfect turn of its ears and the thick sheaf of grey whiskers.

On his way back home, made slightly lopsided by four pints of Guinness, he forgot about the dead fox until he reached the apex of the bridge. With a half-stumble, he briefly contemplated turning and going around the long way. Then he raised his jumper sleeve to cover his mouth and nose, and stepped past the body into the light of the street lamps.

In the evening

Sporadic sunshine

Click here to buy prints, posters and cards of these photographs!

Because of all the rain we’ve been having, our garden is incredibly lush and green for the time of year. Yes, Ireland does tend to stay green all year around, but the abundance and vividness of the plants this summer is truly incredible, especially when the sun does deign to shine. I’m not sure that it makes the rain worth it, but it is beautiful.