this is iona street where my B&B, the botanic view, was. the whole neighbourhood was full of old brick houses and i nearly died from envy because i don't live there. how people find their way home is a mystery to me. i bet i would constantly find myself with my house keys stuck in someone else's lock. everyone has their own kind of front garden, though. that must help. and i think the streets all have different trees lining them, at least the next one had birches, which i loved.
this is just a fence spotted on some station along the DART route to howth. the simple flattening and splicing of the ends gives the otherwise quite cold steel an almost organic appearance whilst also serving a practical purpose of adding gruesomely sharp spikes on top. me likey.
sea beet grew in the howth harbour right where the breakwater begins.
the self-portrait is accidentally brilliant with all the diagonal lines. i'm also quite sunburned in this already but it doesn't show. the weather was much brighter than the photos depict, so i was burned further during this trek, especially once the sun really came out in the afternoon.
i expected to be more dizzy on the cliffs right above the roaring sea, but my vertigo kept in check and i thoroughly enjoyed my walk, although i had to look at my feet a lot to keep from tripping. the path was fine, it's me who's clumsy. i only had a few drops of rain, the clouds passed me by, although it did look really moody for a while.
parts of the trail were gloomy with dead gorse surrounded by bracken. the graffiti is from the end of my chosen path, near the train station, but i think these two images pair up much in the same way as the fence and sea beets earlier.
so, i chose the red arrow path. i really can not recommend it to anyone, it was quite shite and poorly marked in some places. a friendly excavator operator saved me from getting completely lost, but also confused me with his 'directions' so i kept on following the red arrows to the bitter end. i was lured onto it because i wanted to see the bog of frogs, but i missed that one completely. i thought i would arrive at any minute and then i was back where i started from. next time i'll take the purple route.
i am absolutely going back to howth again some day soon. hopefully with someone next time. it was fine to climb the hills alone at my own pace but i missed someone to ooh! and aah! with. the view is quite something, both towards the open sea and dublin's shores with the mountains looming behind.
