Wild West

Firstly I must apologise for the image for today as it is not the one I really wanted to post, rather it is the only one I could post. Still, it may have merit of its own but I shall explain. You see, I have gone West, almost as far West as I can go before I fall off the last landmass into the sea, with next stop being America. I am in West Cork on the next session of my documentary study of rural life in the region

As I flew in this morning, I guessed that this wonderful western extremity was going to present itself as wild in the weather stakes when I overheard a ground-crew girl pass a comment to the stewardess that,
'It looked a bit bumpy on the approach'
I can confirm that she had indeed made an accurate observation, and that the wind hasn't let up all day. As I sit here typing this, I can barely hear myself think over the roaring wind noise coming from the two chimneys at either end of the house. The rain has also persisted so that it was practically impossible to continue with the planned photography. However, just to show you how wild it has been, I took some pictures from the shelter of the car of some impressive waves down on the coast road. I guess you would like to see them? Well, you will just have to imagine them for now. As I took them on my 5D mkII the 21 megapixel RAW image is just far too much for my old laptop to process. (That laptop is a well travelled friend but I fear it will have to be retired now. Apart from it being underpowered it is also very heavy and caused me to smuggle an extra 1.8kg through baggage today- don't tell Mr. O'Leary!) So, a less interesting 5 megapixel jpeg image from my point-and-shoot is proudly gracing the top of my post instead today. (The point-and-shoots days are numbered too)

Phew, nearly there. If that wasn't enough, then the laptop crashing three times whilst trying to write this coupled with an internet connection the speed of a snail, you are lucky that you have a posting at all. You may or may not hear from me over the next few days depending on how things go out here in the wild West.