Functional Sculpture

Regulars to my journal will know that I had to abort a recent trip because my passport had expired. To give myself plenty of time to catch my 9am flight from Manchester I stayed with a friend in the city last night. I was dropped off at Piccadilly Station at 7.30am with plenty of time to get to the airport. I went to buy a ticket but couldn't find my wallet to pay. All my pockets were turned out and the rucksack was emptied of its contents, but despite every last effort to will it to appear I was eventually forced to accept that I must have left it at my friend's flat. That was not a pleasant feeling. What is the matter with me?

Very fortunately, I managed to contact Michelle before she got to the gym, where she was headed after dropping me off, and I dispatched her on an emergency mission to go back home and retrieve my wallet. I trust she didn't break too many traffic laws in the process, but she turned up just before 8am with the recalcitrant wallet. I quickly bought a ticket but, in rather a panic, struggled to see which platform I needed for the next train to the airport.

My heart sank when I came to realise that I had just missed one, but it leapt a beat when I realised that it was shown to be running late. I raced to the platform and managed to jump on just as the doors were closing. If I hadn't made it on to that train I would certainly have missed my flight. I might just have set a Manchester record for the shortest ever time between entering Piccadilly station and being seated on a plane. That time was precisely 40 minutes!

For those who hadn't guessed already, my flight was to Cork, taking up an invitation from Travellersjoy to come visit the Sheepshead Peninsular, home also to the blips of Freespiral and quite a few others now I believe. The weather has been positively balmy, albeit rather grey and misty. Having left Manchester in sub-zero temperatures it is actually hard to believe how warm it is here just a few hundred miles away. It was almost T-shirt weather. Trees are coming into bud and daffodils into bloom. It's an extraordinary contrast to the winter I left behind in Ilkley.

We've spent so much time chatting today that not too much photography has gone on. It would be rather ironic for two blippers to meet and then get so wound up telling stories as to forget to blip! And I can tell you that the modest and unassuming TJ has some extraordinary stories to tell, carving out a life for herself and her two daughters on the land here, starting with literally nothing. I hope she won't mind me telling you that I've felt humbled today by her adventure here and what she has achieved.

This shot today is of a wall, a wall that is more akin to a sculpture. TJ has blipped it before here. Whereas the drystone walls in Yorkshire are packed tightly together, the stones here are of a greater variety of shape and size and are wedged together in a very solid but distinctly creative way. You get the feeling that this wall was built less for practical reasons and more to simply please the eye. It's playful. This one flat stone in particular is wedged very solidly in place, but clearly serves no functional purpose whatsoever. It is, quite simply, a work of art.

Thanks for the wonderful feedback to yesterday's blip. Too busy chatting to comment back. I hope you'll excuse me that one!

PS Perhaps I should have blipped this one!