The Departed

Gale to storm-force winds last night and this morning have whipped the white horses to frantic frolics across Dublin Bay. I have a plan to escape into the city and haunt the National Gallery. Complaints from the comfortable are too easily tossed about when the weather gets wild. The air is crackling with energy and I reckon getting out and about for a spell can pump some fiery charge into the soul.

"The Departed" - watercolour

I was chatting with the old man sometime in the last week or so and he detailed for me a wonderful vision of our home beach. They're just across the road from a beach back on the Sunshine Coast in Queensland, Australia; a long, serpentine ribbon of coarse golden sand that gets a good wallop now and then from the Pacific. Dad reckons that when there's a wave up you get a fair idea who's out in there by looking at the dogs on the beach. Abandoned, left to guard the towel and t-shirt, these departed hounds express their resignation or indignation as their breeding (often a medley thereof) dictates.

Detail from, "The Departed"

Detail from, "The Departed"

Detail from, "The Departed"