Wednesday 28 March 2007

By now you’ve come to expect the occasional odd nuance from me. Maybe some of you are surprised, but few of you shouldn’t be. First it was the bench pictures (which have long been ostracized to their own blog and now will be shamelessly plugged by pointing out the link in the right hand margin). Next it was the blue-hued photos from Rome (OK… THOSE were an accident caused by a bad camera setting). Then there’s my fascination with street sweepers. All of these probably have some sort of Freudian connotation, that I’m sure will all come out during therapy later in life.

I suppose I could bore everyone (did someone mention bench pictures again?) by telling you about my experience the other morning with “rail rage” on my commute to work, or maybe how the hallway entering our flat always seems to smell of curry, or even how we now have a family of ducks nesting in the water garden just below our balcony, but that would be... well... boring.

Lately… I’ve taken to photographing cemeteries. I just find them fascinating. This isn’t really a “new” fixation either as those family members that were dragged to a remote location on Long Island to see Theodore Roosevelt’s grave may attest to. For whatever reason, it seems I took more photos of gravesites on our recent trip to Ireland than anything else. Perhaps I’m going through a dark period with a slight macabre touch.

These were taken in a small un-named cemetery located next to our hotel in Dublin. I left Amy at the breakfast table whilst I took advantage of the rising sun that was casting some neat long shadows.

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Powerscourt Estates had acres of glorious, sculptured gardens and fountains, but when I climbed to the top of the ground’s watchtower I noticed something that wasn’t on the map, an overgrown graveyard with remnants of perhaps a chapel. The fun part was that the only access that I could find was a section of collapsed wall, which of course I climbed through. Needless to say, Amy didn’t join me.

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The cemetery associated with St. Kevin’s Monastery in Glendalough had several Celtic Cross style headstones which were perfect against the misty, hazy weather we had on our visit.

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