Rock On

Day turned from almost chilly to warm by early afternoon. I had a window of a couple of hours so I drove towards Killiney Hill, thinking I might take a wander in the woods near the obilisk. Then I changed my mind and turned left towards Sandycove, only to finally decide to turn right, for Bullock Harbour.

I drove onto the little stone harbour wall and parked beside a line of little row-boats. The sun had come out, tourists and teenaged kids were wandering about, but there was still something pleasantly soporific about the place, with its moored fishing boats, its shop selling tackle and its cosy, big-windowed Victorian cottages housing those lucky souls dwelling on the sea's doorstep.

I became fixated by some huge gulls sitting on a rock just outside the harbour. Then I walked through a little opening in a wall, leading behind the shops and houses.

It was like stepping into a secret garden, a flowering of stone and water. Here was the stuff the harbour had been chiseled out of by Victorian masons: granite, great wrinkled and folded humps of it, gold-brown as sugarcane in the evening sun, slurped by the sea. Kids were wandering around, some of them tourists, others Irish lads with fishing rods.

I love granite, the land's warm toes, especially in this kindly, inviting light.

Clamber over it.
Throw your shadows on it.
Wave your arms: make like an aeroplane.
Make group love with your mobile on it.
Hey, stand on the tips of your webbed feet, spread your wings and launch yourself off it.