Not that I'm sitting a rock warm. Quite a few things have happened here and high time it was. Like the spring befits its cleaning in the autumn one has to perk up for the winter. Last summer was a wide-open-doored one at White Strand. A chat to the right, a confabulation to the left and Dusty in the middle.

For those who have missed me, I hopped over to Holland for my annual car check. I thought to 'earn back' my journey by travelling through France. But I had not reckoned on the 'péages', the toll roads. Although they do not entirely equalize the price tag, the feeling to be subjected to these grim highway robberies filled me with 460 disgruntled km.

Since I get my water in Kilshanny I have grown totally lyrical about every gulp that I slurp from my pint glass. Nothing holy well. A galvanised pipe that pitter-patters above a concrete casing. This runs into a second one and I think that's were they used to scoop up the water.

The idea that someone else can read your thoughts from how you move unconsciously is somewhat uneasy, but it can also inspire self confidence. You can also take the initiative yourself and show apparently naive conduct from where you could fool a brutal attack.

For many a year, Dusty has assigned me the task to go deep and fast with her, but since I adopted the sonic approach, our friendship has moved into a new phase. Where the motorised dolphinuniverse.com seems to have been overtaken by her own wake, an affectionate shoot has sprung from the clearing. Central in Dusty's rapidly increasing close-up approach is my waterwing.

A rather outstanding characteristic of the dolphin is the up and down movement of the fluke. This is facilitated by the shape of the tailstock, which is narrow and therefore of limited resistance. The muscles that power the fluke are stacked. The dolphin uses the sideway effect of its flanks for steering together with the agile navigation of the pectoral fins.

Waves, powering up onto the slabs, at low tide just don't whip the lace weed out of the water. At high tide a dynamic playground emerges. On an up wash I dive close to the bottom for the deep force of the wave. I'm swept up swiftly over the barnacles and just before they rip my suit to shreds I let my legs wash past me and turn away. Then I'm sucked back on the nose of my diving mask across the flapping flat bubble weed and race again into deeper water.

I swim myself to the bone, or rather, to the muscle. Before the end of the year I have to start dialysing, or so they say, and it looks like my body just wants to just passionately enjoy my threatened health. And I join in happily. Moreover the symptoms that have been hung above my head are no bother at all. Not easily tired, no nausea and no fluid at my ankles. On the contrary, I swim everyday, am in the water two to four hours and feel myself in top condition. In short, I live like an 18 year old. Maybe the Holy Water after all?

I find it singularly revolting that one individual can coax along Dusty at will, while dozens of people seek her presence. Therefore I'm suggesting a counteroffensive. The idea originated from my humpback waterwing which I have been swimming with exclusively since the central lead load. This wing has five smaller bumps at the extremities. When I slide my hand over them I can hear a distinct ruffle under water. So can Dusty, and she finds this mighty interesting.

Okay, the Humpback waterwing was no instant success. The leverage didn't work, the hinging proved to be pointless, it was too wide, had too much buoyancy, in short, I reanimated an old bowhead wing to fin myself through the summer.
My thinking about the humpback wing dripped on. It simply had to be weighted down?, but how and where?

White Strand is actually a peaceful backyard of the so dreaded Malbay. It is not hard to imagine the Spanish galleons in 1588 being torn to shreds by the white-crested reefs and the abundant tidal teeth. Even the lobster boats manoeuvre within the roaring boomers with utmost care. I find it fun to roller-coaster in the wash, but several times escaped by the skin of my suit from being hemmed in by a sudden ridge.

If you come from far and hope to swim with Dusty, be prepared for a disappointment. In spite of the argument of boaters, that Dusty decides herself with whom she swims, it is obvious that she prefers boats to swimmers. These days nearly all the time boats are cutting through the bay and Dusty has a hard time, for preferably she would swim with all of them at the same time. Usually she selects the one with the most EvinRUDE.

We had agreed to meet at high tide sharp in the shelter of Kieran's hole if the wind would be no more than moderate. Of course, again, I was way too early, as in Ireland time is a generous commodity.
Finally I saw incoming white water and still got startled by the steamboat breath behind me.
I turned sharply, but at once melted before her eternal smile.

When it rains the drops draw slowly and in close formation down my windscreen. On the window of my sliding door the wind blows mini-rivers running down at an angle and on the rear glass big drops slow down into droplets, gather volume and speed along. When it rains harder the windows mist up on the inside and the water sags in drip waves along the glass.

That I have an animal attraction to women I have never noticed. Maybe that is why I am reluctant to relate the following event.
The visibility was only reasonable at the bottom. Above there was one and a half metre at the most. There was again a new boat moored in the bay and right away I saw her glide, her dorsal fin like a crown upon the wheel that she turned.

Inspiration is not an exclusive privilege for artists. Practically everybody is familiar with the flight a thought can take, the spirit that goes adrift, the feeling between daily routines and a revelation. And although people in creative professions depend on their ideas, they lighten everybody's path of life.

In Holland I lived in a large farmhouse for thirty years. For many Monday evening years, a small, max 5, group of people workchopped with my tools in often some kind of tropical hardwood: 'The Wood Club'. I asked no money for that. Instead I asked them to tell me if, for instance, they spotted a tree trunk, like in a meadow.

Only one dolphin
can fill an entire ocean,
but it can take a lifetime
for the tide to bring her in

At last my multiply-tested patience was rewarded with calm weather and even sun. My humpback wing, third revision, promises an interesting summer. I can take it on now, but still have to learn how. I ponder over it on the shore while having an excellent view on the bay. There is my laboratory and, if she's in a bit of a good mood, Dusty, my coach.

It's not that I'm superstitious, but more because I fear that I have so much to tell this time that the attention span of new visitors won't reach, so this time it's a double edition. It's up to the reader to decide where one goes into the other.

It is oh so about to be Spring here. Everywhere I spot flowers that open up to the sun. Frontrunner this spring is the scurvy grass. The leaves are of shiny green and vary from kidney-shaped to a broad-bosomed mother's heart. The flowers are petite white and, quivering in the wind, grow in twinkling communities. For fragrance you have to bend your knees as they are shy in offering their nose of honey.

The handles are coming off. They put the wing too close, it's short of balance with the mono and they take too much resistance. I wake up at White Strand and start off with the usual fibs. First of course I have to fry water for tea, then a strandwich (half a knife of Nutella in my mouth, a firm bite of bread and rather a too hot swig of tea, then the milling), then a bit of work on the computer and who knows...

The fork mystery

When I switched to hotchpotch last autumn, I initially mashed it with a fork. This began to bend until it was at a right angle to the handle. Shortly afterwards my backdoor would not close, even after an extra push. I looked closer and saw my fork jammed, but neatly bended back. I'd like to see Uri Geller try that.

Some things are truly unplannable. Like my foot!, that infinite shriek in my right runner. Every step of the way from here to Holland and back home again, I was accompanied, if not possessed, by a beep, presumably caused by a leak in an air chamber in the sole of my shoe.

Some things are truly unplannable. Like my foot!, that infinite shriek in my right runner. Every step of the way from here to Holland and back home again, I was accompanied, if not possessed, by a beep, presumably caused by a leak in an air chamber in the sole of my shoe.

The last few weeks the swell is running up in hordes. The waves keep building up when they reach the shallows and collide into the rocks with such a slam-dunk that, standing in front of the pub, 300 metres away and 30 higher, you can hear it as a freight train thundering by without end.

Eating is a necessary evil insofar as you can't do without it and because it takes time. This may sound futile, but if the days don't do, you have to cut down on flexibles. Three years in a row I ate the same here: boil-in-bag rice, sliced pepper, squared ham, onion rings and shaved garlic. That was up in 20 minutes and down in 10.

A few days ago, gigantic waves appeared out of nowhere, caused by a storm or seaquake hundreds of miles from here. Seen from the meadow, they are heading straight towards me in climbing sets. They are limitedly photogenic, as camera one eye does not show depth.

Veteran visitors of this website will remember Verena. We lived for two and a half years mostly together on the meadow, partly in Berlin and briefly at a few other places.
Though our main focus was swimming with Dusty, we often walked in wonder through the beauty of the Burren and also by herself Verena went on long walks, often returning way after sundown.

I am not addicted to risk or a Jackass and not in the least tired of my life. But it just so happens that my favourite activities in their extreme border on peril. Yestermorning saw a storm immense that whirled the tea out of my mug, blew my eyebrows in a knot and drove the tears out of my eyes.

(Yankee Lady,so good to me
Yankee Lady just a memory,
Yankee Lady so good to me,
your memory, that's enough for me)
(Jesse Winchester)

That is the question. So why not let this question give its own answer?

Everybody knows the 'smileys'. On closer inspection the name is not accurate. A smiley has the corners of its mouth going upward. It does not only smile, it laughs. But let’s drop this.
So how about a dolphin?