Monday is walking day. Originally we’d hoped to be walking Friday, Saturday and Sunday too, but the best laid plans etc. We decided on a loop around The Magharees (Na Macharaí, ‘the plains’) as described in Adrian Hendroff’s The Dingle Peninsula: a Walking Guide. It’s an excellent book, really well laid out and clear. The version we chose (he offers two) is about 16km, a three and a half hour walk.
I cycled over the road to Coomenole. It isn’t a long cycle from Baile an Chalaidh, but there are a few climbs and my legs aren’t what they used to be, so I took my time. Thanks be to God for the granny cog on the old Bentini. I got there in about 45 minutes, with a couple of scenery breaks on the hills (ahem).
Rodney’s getting ready for Winter. He’s okay with its imminence. Some Summer days in South Leinster, where he lives, its bloody boiling hot and even lying the shade isn’t enough. Not a lot of people know this, but dogs have a higher temperature than humans. And the heat these days in people’s houses is the cause of a significant amount of respiratory illnesses and asthma in dogs. Rodney knows this.
I’m devilishly handsome. I like that word ‘devilishly’. It suits me. We corvids (crows, if you wish) don’t believe in gods or devils, obviously. Though we do have a healthy respect for what you humans call ‘nature’. You used to have that respect, too, once. But you’ve forgotten most of what you ever knew. You can call me Raxia Bluefeather. It’s not my name, but it’ll do. As has been explained before, the names of rooks is very important to us and far too complex for your minds. Not too complex, perhaps – that’s not fair. But it would be alien to you. Incomprehensible. I’ll leave it there.
I’m worried about Ricky. Ricky is the young robin who has fledged from a nest in our hedge and is hanging around, mainly in front of our house, his ‘parents’ having flown the coop (haha). I use the inverted commas around parents because, for the most part, birds don’t really do parenting. When chicks are fledged, they are fledged, and are largely left to their own devices.
My name is Clarence Cavedweller Passiformus V. It’s a wren thing. We are from the family Troglodytidae after all. Not a lot of people know this, but in Latin the ae at the end of words is pronounced i. Just saying. My father was a Greek scholar as well as Latin. I’m Irish and I must say I do like the Irish term: dreoilín. Nice ring to it.
