Birthday

A couple of weeks back Matt and I woke to find him an entire year older. For his 24th birthday he asked for only one thing; to see the sunset behind the mountains. As he expressed this wish i looked up at the early morning sky and found a mix of fog and rain greeting us. Being the eternal optimist that i am, i told him i did not think his wish would come true on that day.

So we worked at building a woodshed for the man we were staying with, a nice Englishmen named Hugh. As we worked at making the shaky structure sturdy the overcast sky began to break apart. Rays of sun peeped out from behind fog banks and in a couple of short hours it was a glorious mid fall day.

Hugh arrived home from a painting job and we asked him if we could cut out early and take a nice long bike ride down the Sheep's Head Way. Hugh agreed that that was a splendid idea. And so we went down the road, coattails flying in the breeze as we followed the road through villages and towns. The Atlantic ocean kept us company, always frothing about just off the road and to the left.

We stopped off in a small village along the way (the name escapes me now) and sat down for a birthday pint of Murphys stout. We spoke to the woman behind the bar and asked her how much further it was to the end of the peninsula. She looked out the window at the late afternoon sun and told us it was further than we could get before the sun gave out on us. She advised us to try again another day.

So Matt and I reconvened over our pints and decided to heed her advice. We rode back to where we started from and just before we walked up the dirt road to the house i stopped to take a picture of Matt's wish come true; a beautiful sunset quickly fading behind the hills of Shantullig.