Sitting a while in Donegal.

Here I sit in the early morning on the bench outside my rented cottage in County Donegal, mug of steaming tea in hand as I survey all around me. The clouds that have been sitting on top of Muckish Mountain have slipped down her sides to lie like a heap of rumpled underwear that has been dropped on the floor at someone's feet, and how she stands now, naked and unadorned for everyone to see.

Further away, and over to the west a little, Mount Errigal's freakishly smooth cone reaches for the sky, scratching it with her pointy summit and sending screes of weathered rock slithering away down her slopes back towards Gweedore.

Rolling hills, sheep, the smell of turf in the air from last night's fires; the sun battling with the clouds, sometimes winning, sometimes not, and a profound quietness made up of the wind moving leaves about on trees, insects buzzing and sheep bleating, all towards the end of a summer evening.

My soul races and soars as I look around, but then I drive into town and have my sensibilities offended at the profusion of cheap souvenir shops and people wearing "Kiss me Kwik" hats.