Despite my moaning, I love living here in the west

Double Vision with Charlie Adley

Hi Charlie! I’d like to introduce you to my friend. He writes about Galway too, but not like you: he loves it here!” Ouch.

On their way to saddening my heart, his words met the memory of an observation made by the wonderful Vinny Brown of Charlie Byrne’s bookshop.

“So Double Vision is a bit of a grumpy old man outlet, really, is it?”

Well, if it appears like that to such discerning readers then yes, it must have been of late.

If in recent weeks it has appeared to colyoomistas that I no longer love living in the West of Ireland, then I have failed to share with you the truth, the whole truth, the joyful truth.

Of course there are times when my 54 year-old bones ache a bit more, when my mind turns to its darker side and temporarily dwells in the Land of Grump.

Yet there are infinitely more moments when I declare my gratitude to the universe. On several occasions each day I simply give thanks for living here.

25 minutes from the friendly bustle of Quay Street, I can stand in my back garden and see no evidence of human life. Well, there are stone walls that didn’t build themselves, but also there are rare and wonderful moments when the power tools of the townland are downed, and silence reigns.

Silence comes in many forms, and the one I enjoy around my house comfortably includes the swish of wind through wet willow leaves, the song of birds, the buzz of a thousand flies around the flowering ivy and the occasional belch of my dog or her owner. Beyond that, blissfully, there is no distant roar of traffic, no crash of construction nearby, no human rage to interrupt my peace, nor any antagonism to fuel my angsty fires.

Before we adopted Lady from the fabulous folk at MADRA (madra.ie, or text Marina on 086 814 9026) I was fearful that I’d no longer be able to step outside and stand dead still, as I am prone to do, watching the clouds change shape, the journey of the sun and the starlings washing in the puddle in the bohreen.

Happily it turned out that Lady has the same space cadet tendencies as myself. So we both stand by the gate and enjoy being immobile members of the scene together.

Well, apart from those starlings washing in the puddle. They’d send her mental.

Lady and I head up the bog road each morning around 8.30am, and recently I have had my breath taken away by the autumnal beauty that greets us.

With thick mist lying low on the ground, the diffused sunlight picks out stretching fields of golden grasses, rusty ferns and perky heather, all linked by a diamante chain mail of ten thousand spiders’ webs, piercing the gloom with shards of glistening eye-dazzling light. Every gate post and gap in stone walls is sealed with one of these graceful creations, lighting up as the low sun bursts through the mist.

For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.