07 June 2013

Enjoying summer sunshine and Mediterranean colours

Mediterranean colours on the sea at Greystones, Co Wicklow, this afternoon (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2013)

Patrick Comerford

The Summer sun continues, and temperatures on the East Coast rose above 20 this afternoon.

All week, we have been able to enjoy morning coffee on the lawn at Braemor Park – the first time such a pleasure has continued for a full week for a long, long time.

I really want to enjoy this sunshine for as long as it lasts. I am working over the weekend, and so this afternoon two of us went south to Greystones for a walk on the beach before a late lunch.

The combination of school holidays and summer sun had brought a large number of families onto both the small beach in the tiny cove below the sadly-decaying La Touche Hotel, and the long beach that stretches south from the DART station.

Enjoying the perfect sailing weather and the Mediterranean sunshine at Greystones, Co Wicklow, this afternoon (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2013)

In the strength of the sunshine, the water was a dazzling array of Mediterranean colours, from rich blue, azure and aquamarine to turquoise and the deep reddish-purple of Homer’s wine dark sea:

Even so I yearn day after day,
longing to reach home,
and see the hour of my return.
And if some god should strike me,
out on the wine-dark sea,
I will endure it, owning a heart within inured to suffering.
For I have suffered much, and laboured much,
in war and on the seas:
add this then to the sum.


The Odyssey, Book 5, 243-248

A little out to sea, few free hearts were enjoying the perfect sailing weather. Closer to the shore, three or four earnest swimmers were in the water.

We stepped up off the beach and under the bridge below the railway line, and then strolled back through the town for a late lunch in the Happy Pear – Aubergine Parmigiana (Melanzane alla Parmigiana) with generous salads, a perfect Mediterranean meal for a day with a Mediterranean feel to it.

I lingered and lazed a little longer over a double espresso, watching others enjoying the summer sunshine as they walked up and down the street, like some volta in a Greek coastal town on a summer evening.

We had another stroll on the beach. Back up at the cove below the former La Touche, children were jumping from the rocks into the water.

Summer has come home. Long may it stay.

Summer shines on the lawn at Braemor Park this afternoon (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2013)

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