One thing I’ve always loved about living in Ireland is the way that random strangers will often come up to you and tell you their life story. Sure it can be a bit odd, and other times it’s just plain weird but I find if you go with the flow it’s actually quite interesting.
Something I found via 52 projects is the Stranger A Day blog. It’s a very simple idea: every day in 2004 Roark Johnson took a photograph of someone he didn’t know and he posted the results on his blog. He’s captured some great characters and I only wish he’d maybe posted a little bit about them because I’m just nosey that way. It’s a project I’d love to do myself.
I met the gentleman in the above photo while down on one of my Killiney beach walks. His dog came bounding up the sand towards Eve and plopped a tennis ball at her feet obviously expecting her to lob it into the water for him. She thought this was the greatest thing as she loves dogs and she burst into the most infectious laughter. Realising that she wasn’t going to throw the ball, the dog picked it up himself and ran off into the waves. His owner was a little slow and had a young puppy with him. He came up to me and said it was lovely to see a child that’s not afraid of dogs, I commented that she maybe could do with just a bit more fear of them. We chatted for a while longer and he told me that he had just collected the puppy from a rescue in Wicklow. Apparently this rescue is a family home but they have hundreds of dogs and the place is overrun with them. He and his wife had gotten the older dog from the same place a few years ago, they were out for a drive at the weekend and decided to visit the shelter and couldn’t resist this beautiful ginger puppy. He said she really brightened the house up and the two dogs gave him a good reason to get out and about every day.
4 replies on “Talking To Strangers”
Killiney Beach and Killiney Hill are great places to meet dogs and their people. (See, I have my priorities in order. :)) I find the dogs in Ireland such more more reserved than American dogs so it’s always a huge excitement for me when a dog seeks me out or tries to play with me. I can’t wait until we can have a dog again.
Heart warming.
Nice Post.
Hehe, I have wonderful memories of going up Killiney Hill with a group of friends, finally making it to the Wishing Steps at the top, collapsing utterly exhausted, then watching a spry older gentleman of at least 80 years old bounding past us with his dog. Certainly put us to shame! So we went and drowned our embarrassment in a pub across the way and decided to take the no 59 bus back down the hill, lol!