Freelance Writer
Photo by Fitsum Admasu on Unsplash After the scorching bank holiday weekend, I’ve realised that I might never have spent so much of my regular time outdoors as during the lockdown. In the last couple of months I’ve taken to running, walking, cycling and even just sitting outside as much as possible, often for a couple of hours…
Maybe he’s just a phone addict who likes to keep checking his cigarette? Photo by Charles Cheng on Unsplash Self-isolating at home, I should be in my element. All the time in the world to study and write, but work levels hit a bit of a slump over the week as I joined in with all the pandemic…
Me wearing a surgical mask I got in Japan. Not perfect, but it’ll help. Had to take off the shades as I looked too much like a thief and because breathing behind the mask makes them fog up. There’s a sign outside the café-cum-shop appealing to customers that they’re only letting in a “maximum of…
Photo by Henrique Craveiro on Unsplash “There are decades where nothing happens and there are weeks where decades happen.” – Vladimir Ilyich Lenin They say that frogs in a pot of water being brought to the boil won’t notice the temperatures rising beyond a critical point until it’s too late. This logic is often applied to political situations…
Photo by Ruby Doan on Unsplash Now it’s feeling like spring, despite the worst weather all winter. Years in Ireland last around 15 months, from January of one year to March of the next, such is the length of the winter. Spring is rarely counted, unless you’re into the league or the lambing, and it’s probably still the…
Westport Road near Clifden, Co. Galway. Photo by Mateusz Delegacz on Unsplash It’s the middle of February, and there’s a Fatima sun shining through the sleety, snowy, silver-grey skies. The weather is worse than that of slow January, which was cold but clear and dry. Fresh and invigorating. February has no time to waste, even in a…
Who wouldn’t want to live here for a while (and ski down those mountains every day)? Why you should do a ski season in Japan I’ve written before about why I’d wanted to do a ski season in Japan for years before finally going for it last winter. There were two main reasons: snowboarding itself…
Winter in Japan is a beautiful place. Happo One, Hakuba valley, Nagano prefecture, Japan. Photo by Tomas on Unsplash A few people have been asking me lately about travelling in Japan in general and skiing there more specifically. The first thing I did on my first visit to Japan in 2017 was get a flight to Hokkaido…
Photo by Conor Luddy on Unsplash The Forty Foot, January 12th 2020 The weather has been pretty amazing so far in 2020. A stormy Saturday brought rain of the kind I hadn’t seen in a few months, but today was calm as we eagerly anticipate Storm Brendan roaring in on Monday morning. And what a calm it was.
Do I’ve any regrets from living in Asia for three years? Anything I left behind, anything I should have done more of, any opportunities I passed up, any more places I should have gone, any interests I should have explored further, any way I would have spent my time differently? Anything I shouldn’t have done?…