If I had to choose one place for its wondrous sound, it would be just inside the little gap in the stone wall that leads down to Annestown Beach.
Here one is treated to a mingling of the cawing of the resident crows and the crashing of the Atlantic waves.
And all the while, the waves roll in and the tides ebb and flow:
Where is your special place when you just want to listen?
There’s a specialness about the the hour around 4.30 on a May morning in Ireland~ a specialness that I don’t often experience as it is usually my sleeping time.
I’ve no idea what woke me but I knew that sleep had gone out for a while. Natural instinct brings me down to the kitchen, where puppy Stan stirs and looks up at me from the softness of his bed under the table.
Flick the switch on the kettle, pick out my mug with the abstract little red birds sitting on a branch, like a choir getting organised.
I don’t know what it is about the pouring of tea from pot to mug but it is one of the most comforting sounds in the world. As I creep back upstairs, cradling the hot mug, my mind wanders to Sean Dunne’s poem ‘The Art of Tea’ in his wonderful collection with the cup and saucer on the cover. These are the lines that resonate as I take the first few sips of the black unsweetened tea:
Drink and feel the soul flood.
It’s pitch dark outside and a sea mist seems to be enveloping Tramore but I can hear the cheerful chirping of the birds in the monkey puzzle tree which stands tall just outside my blinded window.
And to think I miss this precious time practically every day of my life.
I tend to do almost all my writing in ‘my study,’ which is a rather grand name for the little room upstairs that I fell for the minute I clapped eyes on it 22 years ago.
It wasn’t so much the room, but the view ~ the dangling arms of the Monkey Puzzle tree which is much closer to the house than I’m sure it should be. Deepest green, evergreen, but a tree that also presents me with golden glints, pearly raindrops, tapestries of intricate webs …..
About five years ago, two birds, that I liked to think of as The Love Birds, set up home in the Monkey Puzzle and would sit for hours each day on its prickly branches. I missed them dreadfully when they finally left but they’ve kept returning and this year it seems like we have five generations all partying and singing like mad, before sunrise and after sunset.
No, I can’t see their cleverly hidden nest/s but I smile as their music has added a whole new dimension of light to the dark hours when I hear this precious tree that never sleeps.
I often wonder about the views which are part of the lives of the millions of bloggers all round the world. Go on, tell me about yours!
SOCIAL BRIDGE ~ Jean Tubridy connecting with you from Ireland 