Fiacre Banks

@xFiacre (14160)

Ireland

Joined myLot 11 years ago

An Irishman who has called many places home, enjoys whiskey in moderation and reads Dostoyevsky frequently.

Discussions (64)

Fiacre Banks's Discussions

Sick in Algiers

Fiacre Banks @xFiacre (14160) • Ireland 11 Nov

Birds have taken charge of Evensong outside my bedroom window tonight. It’s still not dark, but I’ve been lying here a while to rest my aching back, and as soon as dusk began to gather so did the birds. It takes me back to being...

7 responses •

8 people

Autumn walk near Ballylesson.

Fiacre Banks @xFiacre (14160) • Ireland 7 Nov

Light, bright sunshine on a Friday morning in November matches my mood - no work to see to, just rest and the time to savour light, bright autumnal sunshine. There’s little in the air by way of warmth, but climbing up through the...

7 responses •

7 people

Wet knicker restaurant.

Fiacre Banks @xFiacre (14160) • Ireland 21 Mar 24

Somehow we have come away on holiday with a very limited supply of underwear for our daughter: we think it’s sitting in a bag at our from door at home. She is quite annoyed at us, and even more so now because of my attempt to...

9 responses •

6 people

As I roved out.

Fiacre Banks @xFiacre (14160) • Ireland 31 Jul 23

What greater joy awaits a person than to venture forth into the world armed only with a slender cane and an inquisitive mind and then to walk. Kierkegaard was of that mind and habit, a practitioner and proponent of walking, and...

3 responses •

3 people

Summer of swallows.

Fiacre Banks @xFiacre (14160) • Ireland 6 Jul 23

The sunny skies over Belfast turned overcast this late forenoon. The temperature also dropped to 16 degrees, a welcome dissipation of unnecessary heat and uncomfortable clamminess. So I put on my walking boots, grabbed my walking...

3 responses •

6 people

As I stepped out in the early morn’ …

Fiacre Banks @xFiacre (14160) • Ireland 27 Jun 23

Feeling light and fluffy today, but solid as a slab of granite lying on the shore with young people sitting on me with a picnic and jumping into the sea to cool off from time to time then hauling themselves up on me to sit on me...

3 responses •

3 people

The bliss of solitude.

Fiacre Banks @xFiacre (14160) • Ireland 27 Jun 23

Love and death, thinking, gall stones, painting the bathroom, squeezing tomato juice, passing exams, passing urine, passing the buck - I love this life but it does get very busy and the duties are many and complex. There’s never...

8 responses •

10 people

Weird little boy perhaps, but that’s ok.

Fiacre Banks @xFiacre (14160) • Ireland 24 Jun 23

I’ve been conscious since childhood of a striving within me after God, but so much gets in the way, notably myself. There was the time that I was so deeply moved when I was about seven years old. I was standing beside the piano...

15 responses •

19 people

Tears and smiles in the graveyard.

Fiacre Banks @xFiacre (14160) • Ireland 22 Jun 23

It’s too hot, to which statement the school boy retort must surely be “stick it in a bucket of ice”. But seriously, my friends, the air temperature in Ireland really is far too high as I wait here under the shade of a spreading...

3 responses •

5 people

What just happened?

Fiacre Banks @xFiacre (14160) • Ireland 20 Jun 23

This evening I address everyone from the safely of the pages of a tender tale told by a conflicted man. I am not that man, but his tale of garbage and flowers allows me to breathe and live, to weep and smile, to build up and tear...

1 response •

4 people

Diving headlong into it.

Fiacre Banks @xFiacre (14160) • Ireland 19 Jun 23

Thirty-seven years ago today I moved from Paris to Belfast, a sad day indeed. Our baby son was six weeks old and we drove to the coast to get a boat to England then drove up to Wales to get a boat to Ireland. With that nostalgic...

2 responses •

3 people

Shake off dull sloth.

Fiacre Banks @xFiacre (14160) • Ireland 16 Jun 23

Ireland is wearing another of her masks this morning. It’s 5 o’clock and the sun is burning off a light mist that’s rising from the river. The air flowing through my bedroom window has washed away most traces of sleep from my body...

5 responses •

5 people

Rain on me.

Fiacre Banks @xFiacre (14160) • Ireland 14 Jun 23

I don’t do well in the heat. Yes, I spent most of my childhood in Africa, yes I have spent a lot of time in India and other places prone to high temperatures, but once the heat gets above the low 60sF (15C) I begin to wilt like a...

5 responses •

6 people

Remains of this little day.

Fiacre Banks @xFiacre (14160) • Ireland 13 Jun 23

The night air is warm and still, hardly any movement in it at all. The forest outside is silent and seems to have given up its usual moaning, and there have been no fox fights. Billowy clouds have moved in from the west and are...

1 response •

1 person

Longing and luxury.

Fiacre Banks @xFiacre (14160) • Ireland 5 Jun 23

It was to a tumult of bird song that I woke this morning at around 5 o’clock. The sky was painfully blue, so pure in its blueness I could have stuck my tongue out and licked it even though the sky doesn’t really exist as a...

2 responses •

3 people

Evening falls.

Fiacre Banks @xFiacre (14160) • Ireland 4 Jun 23

The song of birds has all but fallen silent as the vespertine hour approaches and the light in the western sky fades to a dim glow. My thirsty vegetables have been watered and they look smart now after a day of unrelenting...

6 responses •

7 people

Just a touch of nostalgia, nothing to worry about.

Fiacre Banks @xFiacre (14160) • Ireland 3 Jun 23

I recall a cold night with a billion stars hanging in a black sky. The smell of the desert carried into the town on slow currents of air. It was after midnight and there was no noise other than the rustle of dry palm fronds in the...

3 responses •

4 people

Multi-coloured world.

Fiacre Banks @xFiacre (14160) • Ireland 15 May 23

It took the sky about 15 minutes to turn from the darkest black to resplendent blue this morning - I was watching. First it went a bit grey then turned milky, but there were no clouds. Things speeded up a bit and an apricot tinge...

4 responses •

8 people

Noise in a quiet place.

Fiacre Banks @xFiacre (14160) • Ireland 14 May 23

I took a post-jentacular dander this morning, around 8 o’clock and the peace of the bucolic pastureland through which I wandered was shattered and spoiled by two chattering women. From no less that 200 metres I could hear their...

4 responses •

6 people

Peace and quiet.

Fiacre Banks @xFiacre (14160) • Ireland 14 May 23

I went yesterday to have a look at the house I’m trying to buy, and photographed it from a kilometre away. It’s the white one on top of the tree-covered hill. There are no trees in front of it so the view of the sea is...

10 responses •

9 people