Shells On Bench, Salthill Prom

Evening: I was taking a shot of a bloke looking at the sea then turned around and saw this, a wee installation, left there for me.

Morning: Woke early feeling a bit disorientated from a strange dream. I was with my mother in our old house in Stillorgan Grove. We were in the dining room, grandfather’s room. It was night. I think there was wind blowing outside. I wanted her to stay and keep me company but she had to leave, possibly to go to Avoca Ave. (where I've been living for the past 24 years or so, caring from my mother who died two years ago). I think I realised that what I had to do was accompany her then return alone to Stillorgan. I didn’t want to do this, but it had to be done, was somehow my duty. I can’t remember what my mother said or looked like, though I have the impression she was younger, possibly wearing her checked slacks. Also an impression of her concern, of her love perhaps.

What I remember most clearly is being in the dining room (its magnolia, rough-textured walls) with the dark and wind outside, knowing I had to return alone and stay there (possibly the dining room was also the bedroom). Little sense of the rest of the house (the garage perhaps?). When I woke I was slightly chilled, disturbed by the dream, though it wasn’t really a nightmare. A sense of having to return to a dead place, or as if we were both ghosts. Thinking about it gives me goosebumps.