A Few Days With My Father, Sketching In Changeable Weather

Friday 15th March

It’s the first sunny day in simply ages. I take my very cool new electric bike out for its almost-maiden voyage, and cycle all the way to Kinvara, where I sit on the quay and sketch the scene before me. A few teenage girls are dancing near me, making a film for TikTok or something, and I have to remind myself that the giggles and shrieks of teenage girls are a delight to behold.

Sunday 17th March

It’s St. Patrick’s Day. Not Patty’s Day, St. Patty’s Day or St. Paddy’s Day. In Ireland there are three ways to refer to our national day: Patrick’s Day, St. Patrick’s Day or Paddy’s Day. If I did not take my opportunity to set the record straight, I would be remiss in my duty as an Irishwoman.

It is a lovely morning and I have a trip across the country ahead of me: I live in Galway on Ireland’s West Coast and my father lives in Bray on the East Coast, south of Dublin. It’s motorway all the way and I have my younger daughter Liv at my side. Daffodils line the central divide as we approach Dublin, to drop my girl off at her apartment in UCD. I am going to spend a few days with my father while my mother is away visiting her brother in France. My aunt Gemma, my father’s sister, and her daughter Ruth are visiting in the afternoon. There is virtually no St. Patrick’s Day traffic so it’s a pleasant trip over. Lemon meringue pie made by me and Liv, almond flour florentines baked by Ruth and chocolate eggs brought by Gemma. Much reminiscing between the elderly parents. Stories of cousins and parents and aunts and uncles and brothers and sisters, and of family dogs long gone.

In the evening I meet my older daughter Honor at the Dart station, where she’s come to meet me from her home in Dublin City. We walk along Bray Seafront to soak up the Patrick’s Day madness, and stop for a drink at the Martello. The funfair has come to Bray and the seafront is lined with terrifying machines upon which humans blithely climb, and who are then thrown up into the air, with ne’er a thought given to their maintenance (the evidence would suggest they’re all in fine working order). A Garda wobbles past slowly on his bicycle, keeping the peace. Honor and I sit outside the restaurant with Reuben the terrier under the table, and little Bray kids come over to pat him. They’re all done up in green, their respective parents celebrating somewhere out of sight. Many of the children have taken part in the St. Patrick’s Day parade, and aren’t quite ready to stop yet: a little girl demonstrates a cartwheel, another sturdy-looking lass asks if we’d like to see her Irish dancing. I expect a virtuoso performance, as everyone seems so incredibly accomplished these days. She does the most leaden, clumpy-footed three-step I have ever seen, but is very proud of herself. A row of little hands reach under the table to pat Reuben on the head and I silently pray he doesn’t snap at any of them, as they’re a little sudden with their movements, but he licks their tiny hands gently. Good dog. A girl of about nine says in a voice much older than her years, “You’re very lucky to have him.” I solemnly agree. Little boys swing upside down from rope barriers, and I recall doing the same thing on a low chain on that very seafront, aged 13. I banged my head on the cobbles underneath, the resulting bump becoming an abscess requiring surgery a year later. After our pint, Honor and I walk up to my father’s house, and at half past ten I drive her back to the Dart station. She tells me she’s not looking forward to the Luas from the city centre to her place in Drimnagh on St. Patrick’s Day, as it might get a bit messy, so I tell her I will drive her home. She’s my (grown) little girl. It’s an hour there and back on the M50 but it’s a nice drive: we put her brother on speaker in the car – he’s in France on Erasmus – and the motorway is deserted: it could be 3.00am rather than not yet midnight. Everyone is clearly messing about in Dublin City – and no doubt on the Luas – and I am glad I have brought my girl home.

Monday 18th March

My father and I head out for a stroll. He walks his dog every morning on the Cliff Walk, which runs along the rocky face of Bray Head all the way to Greystones, some five or six kilometres away. Or it did, until a rockfall a few years ago, when Wicklow County Council closed off the path to the public. That would have been understandable, but they have yet to reopen it, three or four years later. My father is just one of a great many people who is devastated to have his walk taken from him. At nearly 90 years old, nearly all his friends have shufffled off their mortal coil, and his mobility is limited due to a bad knee: a walk along the cliff path is one of his few remaining activities (of course he has the whole of the seafront to walk along – about half a mile end to end – but the council should get their act together). I leave him to get a fast walk in, filming a few clips as I go. Bray Seafront is always thronged with foreigners, and I have often noticed the preponderance of foreign tongues on the Cliff Walk: far more, proportionately speaking, than English. That’s not me being racist, but I think your foreigner is much more inclined to get out and enjoy the natural amenities than your Irish person. That IS me being racist. (In rural Ireland where I live, I rarely pass anyone walking their dog on our roads, country roads which are beautiful, safe and a natural paradise.)

I head out again in the afternoon. My plan is to walk to the end of my parents’ road and take a left down to the seafront, to sketch the amusements along the seafront. On a whim I turn right and sketch the sea just before the place where Wicklow Council have erected a metal gate to stop people accessing the path. Lots of people scramble over it, which looks really dangerous, and someone has even cut away a section of gate with an angle grinder. Surely the council aren’t oblivious to how much people want to continue the walk? I overhear people grumbling about having come all the way out to do the walk, only to find their access blocked. I’m going to be racist again: this behaviour of not clearing the path is typical of us Irish, who are extremely unorganised, and as they say, couldn’t organise a party in a brewery. Perhaps I should be more loyal to my country, but we Irish are so sick of it.

I open my Sketchpocket and start sketching. Inky shapes, blue-green watercolour, white gel pen when it finally dries. You can see the evolution of my sketch on my YouTube channel, and if you like the look of it it’s going to be one of two wave subjects in next Saturday’s class. I have worked out a great technique for foaming water swirling around rocks. Not crashing against them: that would look different. My Sketchpocket works a treat and, because I know you’ll ask, is coming soon. A seciond sample should be with me before long.

I get a little cold (you’ll see the hideous yellowish and purple colours of my fingers in the YouTube video) and I head down to the seafront. The rides are still there and they are in full use, but it’s getting a little more overcast. I sketch a terrifying tower with real, breakable humans being swung around at the very top, but the air is so damp that even my ink won’t dry, never mind my paint, so I ened up with brown-ink toned sky.

After drawing a few crazy madmen at the top I give up and start off home. It’s beginning to rain. I buy chips for me and my father – fun! – and when I get back I show my sketch to my father.

“That person on the bottom should be behind the tower,” he says. He’s right. Frown emoji. I have another go and paint in the people, and try to draw the tower on top of the bottom one, a little unsuccessfully.

Tuesday 19th March

I’m out at 7.30am, as I have discovered that my “dead cat” – the wind muffler for my microphone – is missing. After searching a little bit along the seafront, I make my way sadly home, only to find it on the road overlooking the train tracks, just before the Cliff Walk. Brilliant. Without it my audio is horrible, the wind so disruptive to any attempt at narration. The funfair has all been packed away and I am overwhelmed at the prowess, vision and ambition of the carnie folk who have folded up and driven away the enormous tower and all the other crazy machines as if they are packing an overnight bag. It’s one of those times I am in awe of men and what they do. Am I being sexist? Probably, but i’m saying nice things so it’s okay, I think. I’m sorry that I won’t get a second chance to sketch the funfair.

Then it’s time to make, and sketch, the still life I have planned for my Deluxe members’ class. I head to the supermarket and buy a pack of Spanish cured meats and some table water crackers, my favourite. I dig around in my father’s fridge for props, assuring him I only want to borrow the cheese and olives and so on. He becomes interested in my still life and pulls two slices of bread from the bread bin.

“What about this bread, Ró,” he says, “rather than that extra row of crackers.”

He’s dead right. It’s much better. I tell him as much.

“And what about the salami?” he says, “there’s not much contrast.”

I say he’s right but that it’s my job to bring that up in class. I say I’m the teacher, not him, and he’ll do me out of a job.

“Take a pill,” he says, which I think means “suck it up” in mid-century Bray-ish. Then he suggests including the orange peels from his breakfast to show someone has eaten an orange, and I feel my job might still be safe.

The still life sketch goes very well. The Serrano doesn’t make it until the afternoon, courtesy of my father’s dog Babette (below, and see my latest YouTube).

Class goes very well too, and despite some lighting malfunctions – I am not in my studio – we get through it, and the students make impressive sketches.

Wednesday 20th March

I walk along Bray Seafront to the Dart station, and head out to meet my friend Kate in Dun Laoighre. She is a superstar in every way, and terrific company. On the way back the sun comes out and I sit on the beach to sketch the waves.

The day slips by in bliss and contentment as I study the waves to try to capture them. The paint won’t dry fast enough for me to layer or correct my colour: of course I could just take a photo but where would the sea, sky and sun be then? Somewhere else, that’s where, and not all around me.

I start to think of my father all on his own (well, with the beloved Babette) at the house, and not here on the seafront with me. I feel bad. I should go and get him. Suddenly a hairy black dog joins Reuben and me on the stony beach and there’s Babette, and my father just behind her on the promenade, lit up in the glorious sunshine. I am overjoyed, and I put all my sketching stuff away and join my father, and we walk along a little further and then home. Such a simple pleasure, but so profound – wishing someone to be there, and them magically appearing. My mother comes home from France and it’s time for me to return to Galway the next day.

Friday 22nd March

I have a date with a beautiful redhead named Maddie. She has come all the way from Wales to document other redheads in photos for her university project back in Cardiff, and I have volunteered. One of my relatives says I don’t have red hair – I’m sure it’s meant as a compliment, or perhaps just a statement of fact – but I didn’t endure years of teasing for my red hair only to have it denied now, when I am thrilled to be a coppertop, as one of my English Facebook followers referred to redheads (gotta love the Brits and their flowery use of English, there, I am being racist again). My hair is still a beautiful shade of something or other in the orange spectrum, but it is fading fast and I want Maddie to capture it on film while it lasts.

The beautiful redhead photographs me and I sketch her and we spend a pleasant, if freezing and windy, hour at the Blackrock diving tower in Salthill. Maddie finds the climate here unbearable and I have to admit she has a point. You would think I would be more loyal to my country, but I am sick of it.

Here’s the beautiful Maddie…

That’s another week of sketching in the bag – I hope you’ve enjoyed my little adventures in line and colour.

If you’ve made it this far, I want to thank you most sincerely for the comments and emails you sent following my blog I called How I Built This: Luck Or Hard Work? It was incredibly touching to have such a sea of supportive words. I didn’t expect it, as there’s usually little in the way of commentary following my blog, and I just cross my fingers and hope you’ve liked it. You were all so gracious and kind. Thank you, thank you. I didn’t reply because there were so many emails – I must have struck a chord – but rest assured I took it all on board, and I WILL be serialising my Mauritius memoir, whether or not you are one of my whinging women friends. I hope that after reading it you will be proud to describe yourself as such: you are already my friends if you’re a reader of this blog, even though we have probably not met yet. Whinging women of the world, unite!