February the first. St Brigid's Day, the old threshold between winter and spring. The ones before us called it Imbolc, the quickening, and whatever you call it, it felt like the right day to take the sketchbook up Abbey Hill.
The weather did its best work: crisp air, a hard blue sky, and just enough warmth in the sun to let you believe in the season coming. Winter light does something particular to the limestone, sharper and almost luminous, and I kept stopping at the dry stone walls, each stone set by a hand long gone, grey against grass that had no business being so green in February.
I went down to the Flaggy Shore after, where the Atlantic gets to work on the stone. The sea was that blue-green it only manages under a clear winter sky, and the light had the quality I'm forever chasing in paint: bright without being harsh, revealing but still keeping something back.
Then a stop at Hazel Mountain Chocolate, because the eye needs the welcoming as well as the wild, and those turquoise doors against the white walls were a small painting in themselves.
I came home with a sketchbook full of gestures: shadows pooling in the grykes, winter grass warm in full sun, walls marching over the hill in their patient rhythm. They'll sit in the studio for a few weeks now, quietly turning into paintings. Brigid (goddess or saint, take your pick) looks after creativity and new beginnings, and I can't think of a better way to honour her than going out looking for the light among the stones.
From my St Brigid's Day walk through the Burren and along the Flaggy Shore, 1 February.
