Gazing back as the morning mist lifts

Light is always fascinating to me.  On this peninsula in Donegal, the light could be completely different from one side to another.  It could be cloudy and drizzle all day in Carndonagh and the sun could be splitting the stones in Buncrana just a twenty minute drive away!

I think this oil painting translates a sense of standing, looking backwards down the hills behind Greencastle and watching the brightening day trying to lift the mist off the ground towards the shores of Lough Foyle.  Many of the roads up that way end in tracks into the hill and dead ends.

The ground is still warm from the day before and the first rays are gathering moisture off the land.  The sun is pushing hard to get through the heavy cloud cover across the way by Magilligan, which you can hardly even see. The air is crisp like an early Spanish morning, when it’s nippy but you know it’s going to be a hot day…and there’s a certain promise about it.

Summer in Donegal is like delving into a box of Roses with a blindfold on…you could get lucky with the weather in the morning and a deluge in the afternoon…but as they say, ‘There’s no such thing as bad weather, just poor clothing’…or something like that…but there’s no other place I’d rather be.