I am spearheading the Bring Summer to Ireland Campaign. This work has seen me tirelessly pounding the roads all winter. And it`s been a long winter.
To the onlooker, this ritual looks repetitive, tedious and difficult. It is. But I am fortunate enough to have inspired the entire country to have faith in the process.
Clad in our team colours of dayglo green, and black leggings we have spent several thousand hours each week dedicated to the cause. For, it is our earnest hope, that with each step, the collective vibrations of our stomping feet reach deep into the earth internal mechanism and shift Ireland further south.
And I am pleased to announce that it is indeed working.
Yesterday the entire nation woke to summer. Blue skies! Blue skies! tweeted the entire bird population.And, indeed, even the resident teenagers in the Chook House bounded out of bed early to head for the Great Outdoors. Since they generally shuffle about under the haze of open laptops and ipads, they were temporarily blinded by the full spectrum rays of the sun. But their eyes soon adjusted, and in true Irish fashion, winter clothing was abandoned, sunscreen eschewed as they went in search of melanoma.
I needed a celebratory run myself. So I headed for the river, the better to soak up the sights and sounds of the season.
Yay! Summer!
Yes, it indeed seemed as if we had shifted Ireland about as far south as Cornwall in Britain. Unfortunately the scientific instrumentation available to to us in the BSTIC campaign merely measures the visual. But the sights, the sounds, the feel of the whole place was high summer in Cornwall.
I witnessed this…
….Two of my better looking cousins suffering from heat exhaustion at high noon. No doubt, ongoing concern in regard to the impending hatching of several chicks accounts for some of their collapsed state. I know the feeling. But birds have been adapting since the begining of time. They`ll shed a few feathers to cope with the heat, rejoice in having drier bedding for their little ones, and just get on with it.
I ran my heart out down by the riverbank and took in all the other sights and sounds of Ireland`s summer. Trees, water and heat meant flies were in abundance. Swarms of them gathered to bask in the sunbeams and all along the river bank growth seems suddenly lush as Iris leaves poked heavenward with the rushes and lilies spread in equal abundance.
Evidence too that Ireland may indeed have witnessed a similar shift in the past. This is a boat house. Long fallen into rack and ruin, I discovered it as a ran along the canal section of my route. We, in the BSTIC pride ourselves in our imaginations. We couldn`t, after all, pound the dull rain sodden streets of Ireland if we didn`t hold in our minds`eyes visions of glory.
And can`t you imagine the above boathouse in days of yore? Maidens in white dresses trailing their hands in the canal waters, as fine young men in blazers and straw boaters rowed their boats along the canal? This look would be all wrong in persistent rain of course. The maidens wouldn`t stand for it and their men would have no peace. So perhaps Ireland was actually further south before.
These are the things I ponder as I pound the pavements for the good of my country. Others may be concerned about race times and personal bests, what`s for dinner or what cake they`ll bake for their offspring.
But not me. My mind is always on higher things and dreaming of the collective good.
And thus I ended yesterday`s run. Three and half miles, and crap time but hey, I`d a lot on my mind.
It was time to gather in the little chooks, camouflage their sunburn so the neighbours wouldn`t think I was a bad mum, and throw something resembling lunch in their way.
And then tell them the good news:
Summer in Ireland is set to run until Monday!
Success for my good pals in BSTIC but it looks like we`ll have to keep on running.
redhenrun 