Ready to spring

Between Holywood and Wicklow Gap at 7pm on the 5th of April

A cold spring. More like winter, really,
with a bitter wind, biting at your face
and hands. But spring it is, and the
day still bright at seven in the evening, and the first daffodils bunching forth alongside hedges on small country roads. Spring. And the coat-tails of winter still clinging to the mountain tops.