Coats of Many Colours

Intermittent internet but it's incredibly slow so apologies for lack of comments, but thank you for yesterday's encouraging remarks.

A great day today. The West Cork blippers headed off to Long Island - a teeny strip of land about half a mile off the coast near Schull, population 12. Maurice the Ferryman came to collect us at 11 and picked us up at 4pm. Talk about wrecked and weather- beaten. First we walked out along a furzy track to see the lighthouse - amazing views out into Roaringwater Bay and all the small islands. We went off piste and asked an elderly woman permission to climb over her gate and get back on the road. A chat was taken and we were warmly welcomed onto the island. We then went west down the narrow road, a detour down a freshly strimmed path to take the water at the spring that has never failed for over a 100 years. The water was cold and pure and gushed out of the rock near the sea. Refreshed we continued, so many abandoned houses - put up as part of a government improvement scheme in the early 1900s, many now just left, a couple occupied and some done up as holiday homes. In one house everything had just collapsed leaving a jumble of fantastic colours - the stairs, the dresser, the settle, the ceiling - each a different paint shade, and from where the top floor once was hung a ghostly veil of tattered clothes, the wardrobe long since disintegrated. Colourful paint on this window too - annother house - tatty at the front but new windows in the back - possibly inhabited. Down to the beach, walking bravely through curious cattle, and the tide was too far out to swim but the shells of spider crabs lined the shore. Lots of yachts sailed by as we reached the end and stared for elusive dolphins. A dog joined us as we waited for the ferry home - barking at the waves and rolling stones hopefully before us.
A quiet remote place, beautiful yet tinged with melancholy - all those ghosts.