" And the down-turn of his wrist, When the flies drop in the stream; A man who does not exist,"

The Fisherman - William Butler Yeats

Although I can see him still.
The freckled man who goes
To a grey place on a hill
In grey Connemara clothes
At dawn to cast his flies,
It's long since I began
To call up to the eyes
This wise and simple man.
All day I'd looked in the face
What I had hoped 'twould be
To write for my own race
And the reality;
The living men that I hate,
The dead man that I loved,
The craven man in his seat,
The insolent unreproved,
And no knave brought to book
Who has won a drunken cheer,
The witty man and his joke
Aimed at the commonest ear,
The clever man who cries
The catch-cries of the clown,
The beating down of the wise
And great Art beaten down.
Maybe a twelvemonth since
Suddenly I began,
In scorn of this audience,
Imagining a man,
And his sun-freckled face,
And grey Connemara cloth,
Climbing up to a place
Where stone is dark under froth,
And the down-turn of his wrist
When the flies drop in the stream;
A man who does not exist,
A man who is but a dream;
And cried, "Before I am old
I shall have written him one
poem maybe as cold
And passionate as the dawn.'Don't why I put that poem in today, it's been in my mind all day and I can't figure out why. Well, anyway on a more important topic.. I finish my current job tomorrow, as you may have read around a month ago I had handed in my notice, and as month has passed, I'm off tomorrow, just one more day.
In some ways I suppose I'll this place, the people, the familiar broken printer, the queue at the coffee machine, even the vending machine that never seems to be filled, it's always half empty, no matter how much is taken out of it it's still only half empty, never full either. It's the little things you miss about a place I think.

But I am looking forward to the new job with great anticipation, and I'll admit a little apprehension, I am under no illusions, I know it will be hard, damned hard. I know I will work long hours working into the evening both in the office and at home for at least the first year. But I wanted to keep moving, I'm far to young to allow the moss settle on this stone just yet. I intend to keep rolling up hill for a while yet. There's a deal of work to be done, and not enough time to it, there's a lot of responsibility to be shouldered, but that why you get paid more. I learnt a long time ago that money and responsibility go together. You can't get one without the other. Some people prefer to let others make the tough decisions, work through the difficult choices, while they sit back and wait to be told what to do, some people like that. The firm, solid instruction, all laid out, 'here's what you do...', no stress of trying to figure it out, no worry trying to organize other people's holidays, who works on what project, which one to give priority too. As the old adage goes.."the buck stops here", well I've decided to take that step and take on that mantle, if something screws up it's my screw up alone and I must take the brunt of it, if something goes well it's a great team effort.

To be honest I suppose I'm looking forward to it, I've spent years watching people criticize 'the Boss' giving a million reasons why they could have done things better, yet I noticed in all this they never stepped up and took responsibility on themselves. While responsibility is a burden, the extra wage is definitely a welcome compensation, hopefully it will allow me to clear my debts quicker and afford to meet all my commitments without the constant worry of whether or not I'll be able to afford petrol for the coming week. An extra 11,000 a year (before tax) is a lot of money to me. I think sacrificing a years worth of leisure time is well worth it, I'm only 28, I can easily afford to miss out on 1 years worth of evenings, after that it should have settled down, I can move into a single role on higher money and start to have a life again. I just hope I'm strong enough to do it. I learnt long ago the secret to talking yourself into any job is confidence, if someone asks me "Do you think you can do this job?" my answer will be "No, I know I can do this job". Change is good. T he Dalai Lama said "Change is the only constant" I tend to agree. Another great man's opinion, Charles Darwin: "It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent, but the one most responsive to change.





I felt like throwing in a few photo's here, the first three are of Connemara, a region in the west of Ireland, renown for it's traditional people, homes, culture and beauty. The last two, in order of appearance are Powerscourt waterfall in Wicklow and lastly the Waterfall at Glencarr, you will have seen referenced in a previous blog entry. This waterfall is mentioned in Yeats' poem 'The Stolen Child'


Slán leat,
Concúbhair O' Nuamain