Thank-you for all your thoughtful comments on Monday on how you are meeting October - some feeling in quieter mood, others fired up with energy for the 25th December... Wonderful, how different we are!
This time of year, in my childhood, we would be dragged out (as it felt to us) for 'a walk in the car': a drive somewhere, then turfed out into the misty dampness along the lakeside. In the pebbled bays and alongside the jetties, we would see sailing boats and dingys upturned, hulls being scraped clean and repainted, lines mended, ropes replaced, then covered with tarpaulin for the quiet of winter. I'm feeling the need to do the same here, metaphorically speaking; instead of the the rush and roar and energy of the sea, the gentle lapping and calm of the lake. And echoing in my veins a favourite Yeats' poem, learnt by heart one October at school. I hope it brings something to you too, today ...
(The photo is not Inishfree, but a little island on a lake not very far away, close to where I lived. Only we Irish could have the familiar de-restriction roadsign standing in water: it's designed for boats!)
