#96 - Islandmagee
Yesterday's Nice Thing: Islandmagee and the first day of summer. Photos by Ghin
Looks like it is going to be another amazingly warm day. It is also Good Friday. Yesterday on Brown's Bay I sat in the sun, read, wrote and slept while the boys did parkour. I am just ridiculously lucky to have them as my sons. I know that nothing lasts forever but when I see them playing together I just think, this - this could last forever, please.
Before that we went for the Gobbins cliff walk. I have been there now three times. This time, I also went down to the shoreline and the birdsong in it was amazing. If they could combine that coastal walk they do with a birdsong walk - you don't even have to have it as a Dawn Chorus. The purity of birdsong in the morning is different of course, but ...
I am I bad un, but I think of how conservative the conservation movement is. I think of people in gillets and barber jackets and oh we know so much about the environment... it drives me bats. So to speak. It is like the opera or Shakespeare. Or Greek tragedy. Since when did these things become the exclusive preserve of the educated and aspiring - and deadening middle classes. My greatest wish would be to have all these experiences accessible, not dumbed down into some sort of patronising activity like colouring inside the lines or I don't know... education is dumbed down anyways... I think of my class doing Antigone and being able to ID birdsong and being so comfortable with the outdoors - something which privilege paid for and I think of kids in other places with burned out front lawns ... it is just so infuriating.
I want this fusion of wildlife with art and anarchy. This being able to grow things and loving life and then welcoming death. I want celebration and philosophy. I want listening to bird song and making love. I want eating well and being outdoors. I want playing music and making fires. I want blacksmithing and wool felting. Wood carving and book binding. I want hill walking and tree planting. I want knowing things and being in awe of things. I want kids and old people. I want laughter and crying. I want solitude and company. I want sitting on a beach and reading. I want cooking and making do. Nibbling on plants to see if they are edible. I want walking late in the middle of the night in the middle of Belfast Harbour. I want waking up to sunrises over a uncompromised horizon. Most of all I want this for everyone. To be possible for everyone. Not to be cordoned off for a few - the elect, the select. Everyone to have this, they way they always did. Before we were shunted and shuttled off into enclaves blue lit with screens and made numb with reheated food. Before we were inoculated with the idea that somehow buying things was more satisfying that creating them ourselves. I want this... this is my Easter Rising.
We sat in the cafe yesterday - The Rinkha - and Oisin was impressed. This place has everything. It has a cafe, a shop and an ice cream place. What more could you want? Exactly, what more? If The Rinkha don't sell it, it ain't worth having. I can tell you the Rinkha, it sells an awful lot.
It was yet ANOTHER amazing day on Islandmagee. We started off at the Rinkha and then went for the cliff top walk. I can never understand some of the weird structures they have put in place, but the gorse, the GORSE - it was the scent of summer. Islandmagee is like Donegal. A very very teeny tiny slice of Donegal. On Islandmagee Belfast and everything else has been left behind. Everything else has been spirited away. Or perhaps we have been spirited away. Islandmagee has everything, literally it has everything. You want basalt cliffs and nesting seabirds? Check. You want beaches that stretch for miles? Check, check. You want award winning ice cream, also check. You want witches and history. Yes, we have that. You want giant power stations. Yes. Oisin was, what the heck is that? Coming from someone in Lagan, where they live beside a MASSIVE power plant, that is something else.
It has taken me a week to get here...
It feels good.
The seeds are finally starting to push through. I have such great respect for seeds. How they must struggle through. From complete darkness to... being alive. How crazy is that? It is an everyday miracle that somehow isn't enough for people. Plant a seed. Wait.
Looks like it is going to be another amazingly warm day. It is also Good Friday. Yesterday on Brown's Bay I sat in the sun, read, wrote and slept while the boys did parkour. I am just ridiculously lucky to have them as my sons. I know that nothing lasts forever but when I see them playing together I just think, this - this could last forever, please.
Before that we went for the Gobbins cliff walk. I have been there now three times. This time, I also went down to the shoreline and the birdsong in it was amazing. If they could combine that coastal walk they do with a birdsong walk - you don't even have to have it as a Dawn Chorus. The purity of birdsong in the morning is different of course, but ...
I am I bad un, but I think of how conservative the conservation movement is. I think of people in gillets and barber jackets and oh we know so much about the environment... it drives me bats. So to speak. It is like the opera or Shakespeare. Or Greek tragedy. Since when did these things become the exclusive preserve of the educated and aspiring - and deadening middle classes. My greatest wish would be to have all these experiences accessible, not dumbed down into some sort of patronising activity like colouring inside the lines or I don't know... education is dumbed down anyways... I think of my class doing Antigone and being able to ID birdsong and being so comfortable with the outdoors - something which privilege paid for and I think of kids in other places with burned out front lawns ... it is just so infuriating.
I want this fusion of wildlife with art and anarchy. This being able to grow things and loving life and then welcoming death. I want celebration and philosophy. I want listening to bird song and making love. I want eating well and being outdoors. I want playing music and making fires. I want blacksmithing and wool felting. Wood carving and book binding. I want hill walking and tree planting. I want knowing things and being in awe of things. I want kids and old people. I want laughter and crying. I want solitude and company. I want sitting on a beach and reading. I want cooking and making do. Nibbling on plants to see if they are edible. I want walking late in the middle of the night in the middle of Belfast Harbour. I want waking up to sunrises over a uncompromised horizon. Most of all I want this for everyone. To be possible for everyone. Not to be cordoned off for a few - the elect, the select. Everyone to have this, they way they always did. Before we were shunted and shuttled off into enclaves blue lit with screens and made numb with reheated food. Before we were inoculated with the idea that somehow buying things was more satisfying that creating them ourselves. I want this... this is my Easter Rising.
We sat in the cafe yesterday - The Rinkha - and Oisin was impressed. This place has everything. It has a cafe, a shop and an ice cream place. What more could you want? Exactly, what more? If The Rinkha don't sell it, it ain't worth having. I can tell you the Rinkha, it sells an awful lot.
It was yet ANOTHER amazing day on Islandmagee. We started off at the Rinkha and then went for the cliff top walk. I can never understand some of the weird structures they have put in place, but the gorse, the GORSE - it was the scent of summer. Islandmagee is like Donegal. A very very teeny tiny slice of Donegal. On Islandmagee Belfast and everything else has been left behind. Everything else has been spirited away. Or perhaps we have been spirited away. Islandmagee has everything, literally it has everything. You want basalt cliffs and nesting seabirds? Check. You want beaches that stretch for miles? Check, check. You want award winning ice cream, also check. You want witches and history. Yes, we have that. You want giant power stations. Yes. Oisin was, what the heck is that? Coming from someone in Lagan, where they live beside a MASSIVE power plant, that is something else.
It has taken me a week to get here...
It feels good.
The seeds are finally starting to push through. I have such great respect for seeds. How they must struggle through. From complete darkness to... being alive. How crazy is that? It is an everyday miracle that somehow isn't enough for people. Plant a seed. Wait.
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