Greystones

I visited my aunt during the week, and since it was the first of the lovely warm sunny (actually, quite hazy but still a vast improvement) day after some very cold grey days, I took an earlier train and went for a walk along the seafront first. I can't remember what the big tall plants are called - they have a single decorative flowering stalk. Anyway, they had obviously all been severely cut back and I really liked the way the wind over the winter had frayed all the ends.

I've been seeing plenty of bluebells out - which feels early as I think of them more as May flowers.

The first photo, it always amuses me to see now. This is pretty much high tide - and the chances of anyone diving in are slim and remote. But in my childhood days it was a bathing spot even at low tide.

Turnstones

By the Sea

I was visiting my aunt one day this week. After the horrendous traffic last time, I elected to get a train this week, though I think the timetabling was still suffering the after-effects of Ophelia.

I got a train before the one I normally get, so that I could post the sweater off to my niece. Although it was quite windy it was pleasantly mild and I had a lovely walk along the seafront.

We have - a young cormorant. two crows (there's also a photo of them looking at each other) and then what at first I took from the colouring to be a juvenile gull - but on closer inspection it wasn't, and was also too large. I think it must be a diver (loon). I've never seen one in Greystones before.  There was a gaggle of little plovers scurrying around the rocks and bathing in one of the pools, and once the beak emerged, I realised the next bird was an oyster-catcher. At first he was resting with his beak tucked under his wing, and I wasn't sure what it was. And finally some sort of little pipit.

Greystones (2)

The first shot was actually taken on the way to the station here - it had rained overnight.

This sculpture is new since the last time I walked along the seafront; he has a bucket and spade, but I'm not sure what exactly he's meant to be - he has a rather Antipodean look and made me think of wallabies, for some reason.

In the inlet below Carrig Eden, the waves were washing in and out and sparkling like crystal - which I couldn't really capture, though I did my best. It was so windy that it was hard to hold the camera steady, even balanced on the railings.

Weatherworn - the perspex or whatever was protecting this poster looks like cracked earth in a drought.

This was one of three windows in a cottage near the railway bridge. It's funny, I don't remember those porthole windows at all, and I used to know somebody who lived just two doors up.

Several of the old beech trees along Church Road had been felled. With a couple more trunks left unusually high, I wondered if they were going to be carved like this one...

Greystones (1)

I was visiting my aunt on Wednesday, and had already planned to get the train rather than drive.
Since it was a beautiful sunny day, I got an earlier train to give myself some time to walk along the seafront a little. The beach itself has changed so much from when I was a child - there never used to be any grasses growing on it at all.
First photo is looking down the coast towards Kilcoole, the second photo looks north towards Howth Head.

The next two are a mural encouraging dog owners to be responsible, and a view looking towards the train station, you can see the footbridge over the railway track.

There used to be a mens bathing place which was full of water even at low tide - now it's just sand. I have, somewhere, a photo taken about four years ago where more of the mural was visible - back then, you could see the fisherman down to his waist, so it's still filling up with sand.

(Thank you, Lorraine! I thought I had uploaded it - here's the link to a Nov 2011 photo of the mural.

Birds...

We went out to my aunt's this afternoon when I finished work, to try to get a generic cartridge installed and working in her printer. Before calling up we had a picnic lunch (leftover Cornish Pasties from Saturday's major baking session) on the seafront in Greystones. Sunshine and blue skies, at last, but with a stiff wind from the sea it was quite cold and after we'd finished the pasties and fed the crumbs to the rooks, we went back to the car for our fruit and peanut-butter cookies.
One of the crows had a really deformed beak - you can see it in this picture, and also you can pick him out in the next one.

We saw some swallows, too - the first I've seen this year. And my aunt and I saw what looked like a juvenile coal tit on one of her feeders.
I've been seeing a robin more regularly too - usually with a beak full of insects as he flies back to the nest. The nest must be in a very different place to any other robins we've had, as he flies over the back gate and out towards the road. So I don't know if we'll be seeing any baby robins on the patio this year.

Trip Down Memory Lane

I picked out a lovely autumnal photo of the lake in Farmleigh to use as my header for this month - but then I couldn't find any colour for the title that worked, so I had to scrap that idea. C, whose turn it was to choose the calendar photo for the month, chose a snow scene but I wasn't sure I wanted to be looking at snow all month, so I actually had to go back to November 2009 for a suitable November photo...

Last week when I went to visit my aunt she had a hairdresser's appointment just around the time my train got in. So instead of my normal walk up to her cottage, I walked around the seafront instead. Much more my home turf - I can't count how many times I must have walked along that road.

The South Beach - when we were on it last summer I noticed a lot of some type of grass growing in it. That was never there when we were kids. And it used to be possible to bathe in the men's bathing place! I remember a couple of midnight swims there, but looking at the condition of the graffiti it's been a long time since the water came in that far.

There were several "in memoriam" benches along the front - this was the most unusual, and a great take on a rowing boat.

A Ringed Plover trying to open a mussel, a young Herring Gull and a crow...

And some information boards on what may be seen.

My brother always loved this anchor!

Working on the new marina and harbour. Or more like not working - it's all fenced off, but there was no sign of any machinery either from the train or walking around the harbour. A victim of the recession, I suspect.

And look - you can see the house where I grew up - that red roof with all the chimneys. The big tree to the left is a eucalyptus. It was the only tree in the garden that we couldn't climb - with a trunk diameter of at least  8-10 feet, and the first branch coming out about 15 feet up that was hardly surprising. But we could clamber into it from another tree beside it, and there was a rope for climbing and swinging from.

The LaTouche Hotel was where I (very briefly) did ballet, and I've been to a couple of weddings in my time too. It's pretty derelict looking now!!