Depth of Shadow

There I was, sitting in the beer garden/smoking area in Harry Byrne's pub on the Howth Road, enjoying a (well-earned) large bottle of Bulmers (cider) with lots and lots of ice, when I suddenly noticed the way some of the shadows on the wall were sharp and others were blurred. It was a real Road-to-Damascus moment of revelation: shadows act just like camera lenses, I suddenly thought. Objects closer to the wall cast sharp shadows; those further away cast blurred ones. Obvious, perhaps, but one of those hit-your-forehead moments all the same.

Until then, today's blip could have been these news-sellers, but perhaps that would have been too much like yesterday's Coast Guards in their dayglow uniforms. Today's blip could also have been this combo of sunny monumenters spotted in O'Connell Street, but the format isn't really suited to Blipfoto.

One thing common to all three of these and to everything elese that came out of the camera today is the glorious sunshine. What a day! Mind you, I won't be at all happy if I find when we get back next Wednesday that the Dublin weather has been better that what we'll experience in Vienna.

It's still quite early as I upload this (just after 6.00 pm), since I was anxious to sort out Blipfoto so I'd be free to tackle all the last-minute bits and pieces which need to be seen to before tomorrow's crack-of-dawn departure. I met one of our fellow travellers in Clontarf this morning for coffee and chat (getting there ticked the fit-in-a-walk box), and then went in to town to do my usual pre-trip socks-and-jocks shopping. Now it's just a matter of feeding myself, sorting out the fridge, and doing some cleaning and tidying in preparation for Carl's arrival later tonight. It's all go.