It was good to see the sun shining through the cracks in my curtain when I opened my eyes this morning and to hear the birds sing. I stretched, revelled and tingled in the sun’s glow and my soft bedsheets as I wondered and anticipated my day. I love that feeling.

I was particularly pleased as I plan to stroll down to the old bog to examine the budding bracken. I want to write a poem about it. Have you ever noticed the bracken/fern in bud? It is the most extraordinary transformation from tiny green and brown spring coiled bud to fully fledged fern! It seems impossible that so much green could be contained is such a small bud and even more bizarre that the unfurling happens so slowly. The bud seems so full of tension, like a spring. I attach a picture, along with the wild spring flowers in my garden from last year (its only buttercups at the moment).

Also, sunshine is good for the sale of the house. Granted, it may reflect on the glorious strands of colour weaved in webs by those thin legged industrious spiders who spin as fast as I can hoover, but it also transforms Drumbriste House into spectacular. Yes, our home is looking particularly lovely at the moment. The attic filled one skip last weekend. The out houses filled another last month. I once wrote a poem about filling a skip with my self-doubt, my self-pity, my arrogance, and my jealousy. It was much less physically demanding, I can tell you. Anyway, so our home is looking good. The garden is de-weeded (though weeds are as industrious as spiders), the place is painted, and lo and behold, as we sit back and sip our birthday cocktails last weekend, admiring our handiwork, we wonder should we stay! We rang the auctioneer there and then before we changed our mind.

So, I hope the summer stays sunny, and the auctioneer doesn’t open the presses when he comes. They ‘hide a multitude of sins’ which haven’t been tackled yet. And if you want to buy a nine bedroomed, two kitchen beautiful house on the edge of old bog in the lovelyl lake lands of Cavan, with five delightfully clean outhouses and a steam sheet ironing machine thrown in, let me know. We also have a welly boot dryer.