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The heart of the house is J and S's baby R, around six months old now, beautifully herself, mostly quiet and solemn during the day, very curious about the oddity in the room, yours truly, a rogue planet who swims into her ken again and again.

J took me on an afternoon drive into the twisty roads behind the village of Spiddal, eventually emerging onto a stretch of rippling bogland enclosing a small lake, partly skirted by a plantation of firs. We went for a walk, J well-zipped and buttoned for the occasion, me less so, having not gone for enough long wintery walks. My hands got quite cold, though not unbearably so.

We walked for about an hour and a half I'd say, longer and further than I'd expected, the flattish landscape diminishing our distance, as if we should have completed the trip in half the time. We passed the ruins of a tiny stone cottage, a drystone grave embracing a thick clutch of reeds, then took a turn left, towards the lakeside, eventually crossing a little bridge where we paused to stare at the swollen riverwater skirling and fuming, tinsel-lit in the last light. Just a little further we came to an abandoned schoolhouse at the top of a short bank. I clambered up the boggy ground and nose around. The door was open, hanging off its hinges, but I didn't enter. Partly because it looked slightly risky, the roof still mostly there but ceilings collapsing etc., and partly because someone was trampling my grave at that moment, or say it might have been an invisible hand pushing me, ever so gently, back.

What did we talk about on that ramble, apart from what we noticed in the landscape? All I really remember is politics. The things that lay around us are far more vivid: biting cold, bitter-lemon sun putting a spoke through the clouds on the local hills; clouds flushing to pink as we neared the schoolhouse, then bruising quickly to slate-purple; telegraph poles straight or leaning a little in the boggy rushes, many of them with their little tin mustard-yellow warning-plaques painted over in brighter, daffodil-yellow for some reason.

Later that evening S went to work on J's hair, which is just as sparse as mine (I usually opt for the Roddy Doyle special). I shot a whole series, probably 20 frames, some better than others. The above is probably one of the best; something about his look tells you that it isn't the local barber working on his head.

Here's four shots from the walk:
Drystone Ruin
Derelict Schoolhouse
Riverlight
Pole