It's been one of those weeks. Late June 2026 and Ireland has decided to have a heatwave — which, let's be honest, we're not built for. The kind of heat that sits on you all day, that makes the day job feel even longer than it is, that has you counting down the hours until you can just... stop.
So that's what I did. Packed up after work and headed for the forest. A place of sanctuary.
There's something about stepping under the trees on an evening like that. The temperature just drops, like someone's turned a dial. The last bit of sun was sneaking through the branches in those long gold streaks you only get in the evening, and the air felt completely different to the air I'd been breathing all day at my desk. Cooler. Slower. Quieter.
I find I do my best thinking — or maybe my best unthinking — in places like that. Surrounded by nature, away from the noise, is where the ideas tend to show up uninvited. Not forced. Just there.
It's funny, because the world doesn't make it easy to find that. Everything's loud now. Everything wants a bit of your attention, all the time. Choosing quiet, choosing stillness, choosing a forest over a feed — that's not really the default setting anymore. It takes a bit of discipline. A bit of choosing, on purpose, beautiful solitude over a room full of voices.
That whole feeling — chasing the restorative bits of a day, letting the noise and the worry fall away for a while — is basically the heart of "On This Beautiful Day," from the last album, Polar Resolve. It's a song about exactly this. Finding the spaces that give something back to you, even just for an evening, and letting them do their work.
If you haven't heard it, the video's up on YouTube, and the track's on Spotify too — links below. Maybe stick it on for your own walk, forest or no forest.
🎥 Watch:
🎧 Listen: