The Valley of Certain and Awful Fatigue
Hurrah and huzzah, for I have been in the mountains again. Ah-boo, for the journey included the terrible Valley of Certain and Awful Fatigue. That’s it pictured. Harmless looking, isn’t it? Pleasant, even. That’s how it fools you. Then, it attacks your legs as you try, try, try to escape its clutches; fighting the valley [...]
Lough Firrib
Managed to get out for a stroll in the hills last week. Lough Firrib is a tiny lake on a rocky plateau in the middle Wicklow. For the most part, it’s possible to follow a brook up one valley, break off up a rocky slope to the lough, and head down another valley picking up [...]
Animals Exist For My Amusement
Look, look, he looks a bit like that Meerkat from the ad. Go on, do it. Do the line. Say “simples.” He’s not really him. He’s not even a meerkat. He’s a mongoose. I think. Actually, I’m not even certain he’s a male. What do you want from me? I’m not David Attenborough. I recently [...]
Gerry 1, Weather 1
1-all. That’s the score in the last two weeks as far as my having a ramble in the hills is concerned. Last week, I took a walk up Derrybawn. I’d been there before but figured that it might be a good route to get into the hills before all the snow had gone. And it [...]
Mega(lithic)
Took to the hills again the other day. A pleasant walk in North Wicklow around the Dublin border. Two neighbouring hills – Seefin and Seefingin. Each has a megalithic tomb on the top (or just off the summit if you want to be pedantic) and quite splendid they are too. Seefin is the most impressive [...]
Run to the hills
My heart is gladdened. This week, after an absence of a number of months, I managed to get back to the hills again. A few months back I tore ligaments in my ankle and was forced out for a bit. While my ankle still hurts a little if stretched in certain directions, I deemed it [...]
In which I, mostly, name vegetables.
The character Beenfeeld, that I’m writing for Resonance FM’s Whale In The Room play, is like me in many ways. One of these, in an odd fortuity, is that he is now growing his own vegetables. We both have a fine, nascent crop of foodstuffs on the go. I started this veg lark only in [...]
Ramble on
So, a ramble up Sorrel Hill, with the brother, the other day. A little less gruelling than our last outing. Cold and a fog blew in for a few minutes but otherwise quite pleasant. A friend of mine told me recently that two years of rain seems to have kept people off the mountains and [...]
Up the Fancy Mountain
And down the tangled, boggy glen. So Monday should have been a reasonable stroll of a couple of kilometers and an easy climb to get back into hiking shape. Park on the Military Road in the middle of the Wicklow Mountains, an easy walk to the top of Fancy Mountain (really, that’s what it’s called [...]
Gerry Hayes
I mostly sit around all day and drink tea. Occasionally, I write stuff and send it to strangers so they can humiliate me and debase my efforts. Other than the self-harm to dull the shame of failure, it's not a bad life. Like I say, there's tea.
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