💙 a long-ago, much admired piece

The new master of Wrack: our friend, @pinoseed-connect.bsky.social, resting aboard our boat today after his discharge from hospital in Cagliari. He is recovering from a heart attack and emergency surgery two weeks ago.

Our already high monthly costs for prescriptions have increased 40 per cent (or more than €100) and we are constrained by a need to stay close to a hospital for at least a month (necessitating a costly marina berth rather than a free anchorage). Please read our latest update.

@ccohanlon.bsky.social and his wife Given are in need of support as he recovers from his recent surgery. They need somewhere to stay outside of EU. A sanctuary. If you can help we'd be very grateful. gofund.me/4bc17d10c

We’re looking for a temporary (two months) refuge/cheap rental outside the EU from early October. I’m undergoing further medical stuff this week and unlikely to be fit enough to return to sea. Open to anything/anywhere, on this side of the Atlantic.

Wonderful signage indicating the gender neutral bathrooms at the university of Helsinki - no-one being excluded, policed, antagonised or upset!

It's a relief to hear the rain. It's the sound of billions of drops, all equal, all equally committed to falling, like a sudden outbreak of democracy. Water, when it hits the ground, instantly becomes a puddle, a rivulet, or flood. Alice Oswald #Achill #Solas #Light and #Rain

“The Ghanaian poet Awoonor once wrote, ‘What has been broken shall be woven, / the house shall stand, the feast shall be eaten.’…It is written for Ghanaians as if the words themselves a promise.” - Peter Bach @lyst.bsky.social [via @counterpunchmedia.bsky.social]

It's always easier not to think for oneself. Find a nice safe hierarchy and settle in. Don't make changes, don't risk disapproval, don't upset your syndics. It's always easiest to let yourself be governed.

Much to the relief of everyone, I am sure, I’ve been refraining of late from posting my articles here. This one, however, I will. It is something for the cineaste. www.counterpunch.org/2025/09/01/a...

@ccohanlon.bsky.social is not well. He and his wife Given need to fly to Rome to see a specialist urgently rather than risk his condition worsening on a 220 nautical mile sea passage. We need to raise €550 as soon as possible. We'd be very grateful for any help you can give. 🙏🏼 gofund.me/374f8c58

The Right: "Let's see what we can get him to say he does next."

Thunder over the harbour, dark clouds along the steep, rocky hills on the western edge of the Gulf.

“Water lies at the limit of words. It overflows all our containers. It spills out from around the word ‘water’ and it has no name.”

Andy Goldsworthy Fifty Years retrospective at National Galleries Scotland. ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ #Edinburgh

This is the voice of our President, using the limited but powerfully symbolic position of the Presidency to speak truth to power - we wil miss him when he retires. As far as I can see only Catherine Connolly would be a true replacement #speirgorm #aras25 president.ie/en/media-lib...

Beeches upright on the climbing slope, elephantine feet gripping the mossy drumlin at Minnowburn. Holding firm. The small stream, a burn in Scots mouths, once plentiful with darting minnows, carries on burbling her song, in the absence of fish. #Belfast #TreesAreMyBestFriends yours too

Meanwhile.

Watercolour to paint water, uisce, the endless rhythms and repetitions. Gach lá difrúil, every day different. Blues, greens and greys singing their colours to the sky. #Achill #Acaill #MaighEo #Mayo

This beautiful book is now out! It's freely available as an open-access ebook from @bloomsburyrs.bsky.social (thanks to funding from @templetonrelig.bsky.social). You can download it here: bit.ly/AMSP2025 @bloomsburyacad.bsky.social @bloomsburybooksus.bsky.social

Print drawer 9 Garamond 516 italic in the gospel of punched out letters on shiny red tape, stuck beside the rusted handle. Forever tape. Repurposed with treasure from #Achill island, collected over stretched out COVID winters. The colours of the rocks, the Atlantic written into the skin. #Art

‘We slipped out of the taut / and Tudor suburbs, Solihull, if I must’ 🌳 🏠 🏡 🌳 James McConachie from ‘Consolamentum’ @jamesmcconachie1.bsky.social www.blackboughpoetry.com/consolamentu... #poetry #writing #writingcommunity

Local hero, intrepid traveller in a spherical landscape. #fridayvibes

If you’re up for an adventure, my friend, artist, surfer and activist Peter Stridh, is looking for crew aboard his well-sorted 10-metre Laurin Koster sailboat for an extended passage from the south coast of Spain towards Portugal, then to Madeira. If you’re interested, email him: [email protected].

Posted another update to @liznangel3.bsky.social’s GoFundMe appeal on our behalf. Please read it. If you’re in a position to help us, in any way, even just by reposting, we’re in desperate need. We sail towards Sardinia from Ibiza on Wednesday, this week, a 330-sea-mile passage.

Happy birthday, my beautiful, funny, resilient woman. I’m thankful for every day we’ve shared. ❤️

Beeches upright on the climbing slope, elephantine feet gripping the mossy drumlin at Minnowburn. Holding firm. The small stream, a burn in Scots mouths, once plentiful with darting minnows, carries on burbling her song, in the absence of fish. #Belfast #TreesAreMyBestFriends yours too

Poem of the day: Mist by the marvellous Alice Oswald who was arrested yesterday in the Palestine protests. www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle...

Didn’t expect the end of days to feel quite so much like the time I watched my Jesus sandal wearing dad stand in a cowpat & then, in the attempt to free himself, stand in another cowpat with the other foot so he just stood there, like a hapless scarecrow flailing in a gale, wearing shits for shoes

Words Vs pictures

Thank you so much to @ellencph.bsky.social for engaging so deeply with the issues raised in GREYHOUND. 🙏 observer.co.uk/culture/book...

This looks excellent

#Achill Achill, MaighEo, Mayo. Snapshots & mementos of island life 💙

So, the book has a cover, thanks to the kindness of Colin Davidson. Out in January 26 with some events in Ireland the end of February, start of March. Will be available in the US slightly later. Thanks to you all for encouragement along the way. global.oup.com/academic/pro...

Everyone should.

I thought I was done with this piece, image on the right, some time back. Remaking it on a bigger scale, image on the left, has brought it closer to where it wanted it to go. #LostAtSea series

I thought I was done with this piece, image on the right, some time back. Remaking it on a bigger scale, image on the left, has brought it closer to where it wanted it to go. #LostAtSea series

#RIP Awdah Hathaleen, aged 31, Palestinian activist and journalist who helped make the Oscar-winning documentary No Other Land, murdered Monday in the West Bank by an Israeli settler.

Today’s tomato harvest showing the tiny, edible photograms created by the black cherry tomato’s calyx. #blackcherrytomatoes #tomatoes #nature #photograms #redstars #calyx

Gifted this morning with unfiltered blues and whites on Keel strand. Keel from Caol, meant Ng narrow, as gaeilge. #Achill #Acaill #MaighEo #Mayo The Plain of the Yews

OTD Eight years ago with Ten Foundations, Belfast, a livelihood project making schoolbags to support families in the Philippines. Me stitching bunting made by my kids art class in #Balayan, #Batangas, #Philippines.

Achill skies, unfiltered, shifting and drawn by the Atlantic variables. Every season in every day, minute by minute, change. 💙 #DerelictIreland @wildatlanticway.bsky.social #Achill #Acaill #MaighEo #Mayo Plain of the Yews

Amazing opportunity to win £75,000 for your idea for a book. You get help to write it with a writing course and you only need 1500 words of your idea. Details in link. Please share :)