Thursday, 16 October 2014

Castlewellan, Co. Down in Autumn

By midday the dew is still refusing to evaporate and continuing to twinkle in the unmistakenly autumnal light. The cloudless sky is an acid blue like a Mediterranean sea in a holiday brochure. We are entirely surrounded by old trees, nestled in a copse of silver birch and in sight of gnarly oaks planted when Galileo was observing the stars. There is more than a hint of the Jurrasic in the evergreens. Bone dry, brown, curly leaves drop into my coffee. The loudest sounds are made by a hundred-strong murder of crows navigating the forest using the highest canopies as junctions. The only other noises are other birds. 
The lake is so smooth I want to jump in with a parachute and fall for years.
The sun is warm only in direct sight and the air is crisp. The shadows are icy cold. There is a lucidity in the distant panorama only possible in moistureless chilled air. 
It is ancient, relentless and simultaneously irrespective of people but unambiguously symbiotic with them. 

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