Hiking in the Irish Countryside

After a whirlwind eight hours in Dublin yesterday, Finbarr drove us back to his family home in County Carlow. This morning, we went hiking with his two boys, and while I expected the countryside to be beautiful, nothing could have prepared me for the vividness of color and rugged majesty of the mountaintops.

As his boys and I walked, ran, and danced our way to the top, I felt like I was climbing through a Windows desktop wallpaper. The weather changed about six times over the course of the morning, which meant that the sky was sunny and cerulean blue one minute, and grey and cloudy the next.

I never thought of myself as much of a sheep person, but after today I'm kind of obsessed. They were everywhere—as many as you could wish for—and they were completely unfazed by our presence on their mountain.

All in all, today was the kind of day I know I will remember for the rest of my life. To be surrounded by such an exquisite landscape, so green and so fully Irish, was the stuff of dreams.

I now understand what C.S. Lewis once said about his inspiration for the setting of The Chronicles of Narnia :

“I have seen landscapes which, under a particular light, make me feel that at any moment a giant might raise his head over the next ridge.”

And on that note, I'm off to start writing my fantasy series. Watch out, HBO.