Did you notice that Diaryland was down? I thought: no more writing for a v. small and anonymous audience. No more snapshots of other people's lives, their sorrows and yearnings and mundane joys. No Narcissa, Swordfern, Loveherwell, Boombasticat, Kelsi, Annanotbob, Babyhead, so many others. (I would miss ye.) I also thought: what will I do if it's permanently down? Write letters I promised ages ago? Respond to emails from distant places, asking me how I was, a question I avoided, even as I wrote about the minutiae of daily life here? Write, actually write?

Anyways, after a week or so of warm weather, of abundant bloom and birdsong, Ireland is back to hats and heavy coats and zero degree nights; a friend said snow is promised. Lambs will die. The Irish have a saying for this time of wintry relapse: Laethanta na Riabhaiche, "The Borrowed Days", when March borrowed three days from April to kill the poor old brindled cow who boasted that she had survived March. Another phrase for this time: "The Skinning Days".

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