Throughout July 2020, we will be featuring excerpts from the wonderful writing of Waterford based wordsmith, 
Stan Phillips (82 years young and loving life). 

“A few years ago, during the course of a damper summer than this one currently is, we visited Kerry. And I wrote this for a county that is glorious whatever the weather.

Just got back from a few days in Kerry. A bit wet, but there again where isn’t during the course of this fascinatingly odd summer? And if you go there, and everybody must go to Kerry once in their lives, please take that trip along the Muckross Road, through the National Park, and up, and up to the heaven that is Ladies View. Go, like we did, after a morning soft, and filled with rain. See the drying leaves still wet and shining like diamonds sparkling in the sunshine. And the trees reaching across the narrow road to touch the mountains that seem to have sprung, almost by surprise, from the earth. And the branches of those trees stretching out, stark, like the arms of a supplicant scarecrow seeking succour. 

Yes, follow that road as it winds its well travelled way to that cafe at a peak of splendour – and sit there and look over the view of valley, and trees, and meadering lakes glistening in the sunstruck day. Watch how the land falls away and vanishes around bends creating small paradises as it goes. 

And maybe feel good about being alive. It doesn’t matter how you get there – car, bike, bus, or if you still have the legs of your youth, then good breath, and stout shoes, and a will to succeed, will get you to that small part of heaven on earth that is the gem that we have just rediscovered for the umpteenth time. 

New every time it is looked upon.”