My Cup Of Nails

Spending a few days with my friend Johnny and his family in Co Galway. He brought me to a derelict house he knew of, nested among drumlins, as close as to 'the back of beyond' as one gets in such places, where the eye has to concede to encroaching horizons (to paraphrase Heaney).

The mildness of the weather was sent packing by gusts of rain. The road dwindled to a boreen with healthy mohawk of bristly marsh grass down the centre, brushing the car's underside with a carwash whisssh-whisssssh as we upped and downed. Eventually, a couple of miles after we'd passed the last few inhabited farmhouses, the boreen became too rocky and muddy. Thence a short but somehow substantial walk with mud sucking at our boots, over a dry(wet) stone wall, through long grass... bramble, dark pines huddled near a steam-grey lake... and here we are.

We must have been inside the house for nearly an hour, or perhaps it was half that; my inner chronograph became rusty and mildewed as the pair of alarm clocks I found on the windowsill. I began to feel slightly queasy. Maybe the spore-rich atmosphere, the thickly haunted air that populates such houses. When we emerged the feeling passed and I recovered quickly. I'd love to go back again with a tripod, preferably on a bright sunny day.

More HERE if anyone's interested.