Getting late earlier.

These days the evenings are getting late earlier. The light and the warmth becoming more precious. Breakfasts sitting outside becoming fewer - the dew and the shadows resting longer and reaching further.

Quieter evenings too. Birds saying goodnight and going to sleep in the darker trees earlier (maybe I should do the same). At least two layers of long sleeves for walks now. Imperceptibly, yellow and brown hints appearing on trees. Inaudibly too, but then a breeze and they are more rustle-y than a week ago.

Above: a lighthouse, a dolphin, and a landscape like a green patchwork blanket. Painting Aran Islands in June on an August afternoon in Dublin.

Exposed and yet enclosed.

No mountains, no woods on Inisheer island. Very few trees. Hardly any shelter. To be so exposed to the weather blowing in from the Atlantic. Everywhere, all around, tiny, stone-wall enclosed fields. Grey-bordered green patchwork with white spatters (daisies).

PS. More island photos on Instagram

Sea and rocks and tea

The fishermen

The dolphin

She visits so close to the shore

The morning tea, elevenses, afternoon tea and 4 o'clock cuppa.  Teach an tae (Tea House), sitting outdoors with a view of the sea - one of the nicest ways to drink tea :) Snippets of sentences spoken softly in Irish.

Saying hello to the friendly locals.

The daintiest of flowers find their way up through the rockiest of grounds.

Catching the last rays amidst a landscape of rock and sea.

An island trip

Bye bye mainland Ireland

Passing by Inish Meáin on the way. But this is not the island we are sailing to. Staying on the boat 'til the "last stop".

 Hello Inish Oírr (the smallest of the 3 Aran islands)

The dolphin escorted our boat into the pier! Can you see her fin?!

Stepping onto an island of green and grey with dots of bright pinks, whites, yellows and purples. Tiny green fields enclosed with ancient dry-stone walls. The only place in the world (along with the Burren and the other Aran islands) where Mediterranean, Arctic, Alpine and Temperate varieties of plants grow together in the one habitat.