Music is my life
By: Alon Calinao Dy
Music ignites my soul with fire.
When I’m in sorrow and in pain,
It makes me fall in love again.
Music is my life after all these years.
Through ups and downs,
Somehow I manage to survive in life.
Though life is a rough road,
Music makes me dance and sing aloud
Through hardships in life.
Author: Alon Calinao Dy
Whim Wood
Katherine Towers
into the coppery halls
of beech and intricate oak
to be close to the trees
as they whisper together
let fall their leaves,
and we die for the winter
From Katherine Towers’ The Remedies
Emily Brontë
Fall, leaves, fall; die, flowers, away;
Lengthen night and shorten day;
Every leaf speaks bliss to me
Fluttering from the autumn tree.
I shall smile when wreaths of snow
Blossom where the rose should grow;
I shall sing when night’s decay
Ushers in a drearier day.
Autumn Fires
Robert Louis Stevenson
In the other gardens
And all up in the vale,
From the autumn bonfires
See the smoke trail!
Pleasant summer over,
And all the summer flowers,
The red fire blazes,
The grey smoke towers.
Sing a song of seasons!
Something bright in all!
Flowers in the summer,
Fires in the fall!
Nothing Gold Can Stay
Robert Frost
Nature’s first green is gold,
Her hardest hue to hold.
Her early leaf’s a flower;
But only so an hour.
Then leaf subsides to leaf.
So Eden sank to grief,
So dawn goes down to day.
Nothing gold can stay.
The Bay
James K. Baxter (1926-1972)
SlieveLeague
Donegal
Ireland’s Most Beautiful Places
Nigel Borrington
On the road to the bay was a lake of rushes
Where we bathed at times and changed in the bamboos.
Now it is rather to stand and say
How many roads we take that lead to Nowhere,
The alley overgrown, no meaning now but loss:
Not that veritable garden where everything comes easy.
And by the bay itself were cliffs with carved names
And a hut on the shore by the open fires.
We raced boats from the banks of the river
Or swam in those autumnal shallows.
Growing cold in amber water, riding the logs
Upstream, and waiting for the Sea Monsters.
So now I remember the bay and the little spiders
On driftwood, so poisonous and quick.
The carved cliffs and the great out crying surf
With currents round the rocks and the birds rising.
A thousand times an hour is torn across
And burned for the sake of going on living.
But I remember the bay that never was
And stand like stone and cannot turn away.
One hour sketch Killamery church yard county kilkenny
Nigel Borrrington
The old church yard at Killamery county Kilkenny is most famous for its highcross pictured here at the bottom of the post. The old church and grave yard however are just as interesting, the history of the area includes it being the location of a very large monastic site covering what would have been many large building now completely lost in time.
My sketch here I hope helps capture a sense of this wonderful place located on the boarder between county kilkenny and county Tipperary.
Killamery High cross Nov 2014
Kilkenny landscape Photography : Nigel Borrington
The old chapel doorway Tullaroan county kilkenny
ireland Nigel Borrington
When the Fishing Boats Go Out
Lucy Montgomery
When the lucent skies of morning flush with dawning rose once more,
And waves of golden glory break adown the sunrise shore,
And o’er the arch of heaven pied films of vapor float.
There’s joyance and there’s freedom when the fishing boats go out.
The wind is blowing freshly up from far, uncharted caves,
And sending sparkling kisses o’er the brows of virgin waves,
While routed dawn-mists shiveroh, far and fast they flee,
Pierced by the shafts of sunrise athwart the merry sea!
Behind us, fair, light-smitten hills in dappled splendor lie,
Before us the wide ocean runs to meet the limpid sky
Our hearts are full of poignant life, and care has fled afar
As sweeps the white-winged fishing fleet across the harbor bar.
The sea is calling to us in a blithesome voice and free,
There’s keenest rapture on its breast and boundless liberty!
Each man is master of his craft, its gleaming sails out-blown,
And far behind him on the shore a home he calls his own.
Salt is the breath of ocean slopes and fresher blows the breeze,
And swifter still each bounding keel cuts through the combing seas,
Athwart our masts the shadows of the dipping sea-gulls float,
And all the water-world’s alive when the fishing boats go out.
Kells Priory
County Kilkenny
Pencil on Paper
Nigel Borrington
One of the location that I love to take both my camera and sketch book is Kells Priory, county Kilkenny. Its an amazing location to capture in many forms and I am very lucky to live only a few miles away. I have posted here on my blog about it many time, you can used the search box to find these post if you wish.
The above is a Pencil on Paper drawing I worked on from about two weeks ago and below is a photo taken earlier in the summer when there was many more visitors around the site.
Whitechurch graveyard county Kilkenny
Pencil on Paper
Nigel Borrington
The last few one hour sketches I have worked on, I worked in pencil and ink but yesterday I went back to pencil only, using a B, 2B and 5B pencil. The location was a great little church and graveyard in the towns lands of Whitechurch on the south Kilkenny boarder.
I really loved working with ink but wanted to get back to pencil, although the direction I feel that my drawing is going in I am working with mainly line and shapes so there is little difference as yet. With pencil however I like the fact that I can get more tone using different grades of graphite.
I feel the main things I learn during this drawing were, how much to actually include in the drawing from the view in front of me, how I feel I want to represent different organic items such a ivy and trees along with grass and weeds! I feel I got the size of the two grave stone over very well…
I feel happy with the finished sketch, feeling that overall I got across well using the medium the view that was in front of myself. The worked flowed very well with no need to stop during working yet I got a good sense of when to finally stop working and be happy that the drawing told the full story!
Nigel Borrington 
The day after Hurricane Ophelia: the slow return to normality
Hurricane Ophelia
Just hours before it hit ireland
Monday 16th 2017
The day after Hurricane Ophelia
The below images taken during on a walk up in the Grange hills between south county Kilkenny and Tipperary are from lunch time today, looking at them its hard to believe that only yesterday, Ireland for the first time ever in its history was hit by a full Hurricane force storm. Yesterday between the hours of 9am for county’s Kerry and Cork and then around 2pm for ourselves locally we had storm force winds of between 150kph and 130kph.
In the Morning the Irish met office via the media had informed everyone to stay inside and had issued a RED weather alert for the complete country, again for the first time in Irish history. In a very impressive way, almost everyone pulled a chair close to the fire and waited for Ophelia to arrive. When she finally did get to county Kilkenny, she did not come calling slowly or with any manners, she just came at us with full force gusts and left some three hours later. We have had two such storms locally since 2014 with storm Darwin back in February 2014, which I posted on back then, Darwin being however just a very strong Atlantic storm. During both these storms you can do little but sit and wait, however listening and looking out of the window is just shocking and basically very hard to do.
In 2014 when Darwin left she left with many of our local forests lying on the floor, as such I think Ophelia had little left to get her teeth into, as its only just over two years in the forests themselves since, the areas Darwin cleared are still empty of trees.
Yesterday evening we had many roads blocked with roadside trees, along with trees down on the river banks and in public parks .
The main effects this time nationally has been the loss of power with some 360,000 homes left without any electric supply, Ireland’s water systems also works mainly from electric water pumps so this supply for many has also been cut off.
This morning the weather had returned to normal , in fact it was a great and clear and sunny day, walking around at lunchtime for me the most noticeable thing is that the trees have all been stripped of any leaves, they have gone from the start of autumn colors to winter nakedness in only 3 hours, it’s really noticeable that instead of yellow and brown leaves sitting by the road sides, having naturally fallen, we have roadsides covered in green.
So Goodbye Ophelia and welcome to a peaceful sunny Tuesday in the Irish landscape, even if we are still in shock and only just starting to recover ……
Gallery from 17th Oct 2017 – the day after Ophelia
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Posted by nigel borrington | October 17, 2017 | Categories: Comment, Gallery, irish woodlands, Landscape, Nature, Nature and Wildlife, Nigel Borrington, Weather photography | Tags: Hurricane, Hurricane Ophelia, Ireland, Kilkenny, Nature, Nigel Borrington, Ophelia, Power of nature, Storm, The day after, the slow return to normality, weather, WInds | 10 Comments