To Belfast by Enterprise train on Saturday and returning on Sunday - with sunshine all the way to and from. Driving by car has its own advantages, but with someone else doing the driving it's a gift, particularly with sun making the green greener and the sands more golden. At Malahide estuary you wish you had binoculars to identify the birds. The swans and seagulls and some of the ducks are easy, but what are those pacy little ones running along the tideline? Good old George Burrows, who did so much for the outdoor life in this newspaper and on the air. You note as you go along how, near the sea, there is hardly a leaf on a tree - except for ivy leaves. When you get a bit inland there are trees still lightly bearing yellow or gold - oaks and beech. But once out of the Dublin area, you register above all the sheep and cattle on green but heavily cropped grass. It has, of course, stopped growing: scenically, it is all the Emerald Isle. Soon, as you approach Newry, there are mountains to the left of you and mountains to the right. You try to remember the friend, when a young boy of about 16, boasting that he and a few others had on one holiday climbed every mountain save one in the Mournes, but he couldn't remember which one that was.
Then drumlin country and the neat hedges and the animals at awkward angles on the slopes. A lot of water in the fields. Is that the canal or a canal or just a bit of a stream? Every pond or lake seems to have its swans and ducks: mallard, wigeon, teal? Again, bring binocs. On to north Co Down (by taxi) where you look over at Carrickfergus and don't particularly wish you were there, as the singer does, for there's much to see in the way of trees around you. This is fairly well-off territory and the big trees in the gardens are carefully pruned to give a columnar look on the lawns.
On the way back next day by the same train type, and a woman says the carriage gave her more comfort and a better view than a French TGV she had travelled in during the summer. Admittedly this train, certainly labelled TGV, was not running on the real TGV rails, and was from Geneva to Montpellier, but she was referring chiefly to the comfort of the seats and the positioning of the windows. Far better on the Enterprise, she claimed. On the way back you still can't sort out where is the canal on the way towards Newry - or is that just a bit of river? Never mind. Belfast Lough at night glitters on the other side down to Blackhead. Frank O'Connor's version of the "Blackbird by Belfast Lough": What little throat/ Has framed that note?/What gold beak shot/It far away?/ A blackbird on/His leafy throne/Tossed it alone/ Across the bay. Y