The sere brown hills of the Connemara are dappled with soft sunlight. The loughs are utterly still, sticklike reeds punctuate the smooth skin that reflects clouds with indefinite boundaries. It's warm and sunny, an unexpected bonus on a trip where I expected gale force wind and incessant downpour. But Tracey tells me that the winters are quite sunny, nearly every day. It also rains nearly every day. Per usual, today was both. This is extraordinarily nice though.

The R344 east of Clifden ranks in the top ten of spectacular roads I've ever driven. The Twelve Pins and Lough Inagh on the left, the Maumturk Mts on the right, a thin macadam thread between them, no fence, the bog starts at the road edge. Stacks of peat dry where they've been dug (oh, that evocative scent of a peat fire, the national smell). Only an occasional distant cottage, otherwise empty and grand. The sky is softer today, a high cirrus layer late filters the sun, casting everything in an even blue-grey.

At a stop for groceries I hear the Connemarra accent, a thick burry speech with a sing-song rhythm. It sounds like it's from the very fringe of the English language. West Clare's speech is soft and restrained, like the speaker is withholding something of himself. Galway's, well, I may never know, no one in Galway is from there, it's the fastest growing city in Europe. It's apparently the mecca for music these days too, the best players frequent the nightly sessions. After our set dance class tonight I'll join Tracey and Alex to one.