unironedman

What is it about May? The cold and dreary Winter and early Spring seem to drag on for ages, and you long for those warmer months. You want to see wildflowers in the hedgerows, sit on the deck outside and sip a cold beer, and perhaps jump in the lake. Literally.

And then, of course, it arrives.

The glass half-full person revels in the sensory assaults: flowers of various hues, sunsets to cheer the soul, birdsong in the garden (and in our case, chattering little gangs of youthful Starlings who have taken to raiding the dogs’ bowls for leftovers, which means mobbing the house and occasionally flapping around the kitchen when they get lost…).

On the other hand, four fingers and a thumb. That was one of my Dad’s…

But yes, on the other hand, it dawns on you that June is up next, and before you realise your schoolboy error, you have calculated how many days are left before the earth’s 23.4 degree axial tilt starts to steal back our daylight hours…

(It’s a cosmic robbing of Peter to pay Paul, but then can you imagine if the earth wasn’t slightly tilted as it is, and we had no seasons? It’s just one of those many quirks of our tiny little solar system, like the way the sun is about 400 times bigger than the moon in terms of diameter, but being 400 times further away, appears the same size, and hence; amazing eclipses.)

I will have another blog along shortly (you wait for one blog post and then two arrive together…) detailing some running in an altogether different part of the world, but for now, I will just say that April and May in Ireland were a revelation in terms of weather; loads of sunshine and broken records to boot, and we once again marked the important day of Darkness into Light. Here’s a brief few lines from the Pieta House website: Darkness Into Light 2025, proudly supported by Electric Ireland, will take place at 4:15 a.m. on Saturday, May 10, 2025. This inspiring event symbolizes hope, as communities come together to support mental health and prevent suicide.

This was the second year when you could walk in our local park. A beautiful and poignant early start, and it allowed me to ‘see’ St. Catherine’s through other visitors’ eyes for a change. I am sure quite a few of the many who were there would not be familiar with the place, so hopefully we have made some new friends. We all set off in the dark to walk the five kilometres and as promised, got to see the sunrise; the very symbolic physicality of it all really makes this event special.

And of course, there are always dogs…

And for a change, here is yer man, with a horse. As you do…