A pleasing thought.

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I sat a while today in my favourite spot in all of Ireland, in the Gothic Orangerie at Gleann Bheatha castle. Ok, so I don’t get out much. On a freezing cold autumn afternoon there’s little to do in Donegal, and to sit here a while is a delight. It’s warm and cosy and even though the showy flowers may be past their summer best, there’s plenty of plant life to keep me engrossed for hours. Visitors come mainly for the adjacent castle, and those who perchance wander into the orangerie just poke their heads in then leave. Maybe it’s the passive-aggressive glares I throw at them. But there I sat today on a comfy chair, warm and introspective among the tubs of lemon and tangerine trees, giant aloes, spider plants and all the rest. Very Victorian. It’s the kind of place where I would like to spend my cantankerous last days, sitting there in a chair, a thick plaid blanket over my knees, with cold autumn sun falling on me through the glass roof out of a painfully blue sky. I’d shake my walking stick at tourists to chase them away, and one day when my nurse came to wheel me home she’d discover that, sitting among the citrus trees, I had passed.