It's the summer. Apparently. Not that you'd know by the gale force wind currently bending trees all over the place. Out of the side of my eye I can see a line of ruffled birds perched along the brow of the house opposite. A quick gust of wind and they're off, blown away, like a flight of bubbles in a wind machine.

I spent a big chunk of Friday evening at a party in a friend's house in Donegal. The house has this amazing view over the Foyle estuary and out to sea, falling away at your feet, tumbling over a sweep of green fields and bowling right down to the water's edge a few miles away. In the distance you can see Magilligan and Benevenagh, over the sea to the north -- or rather to the north-east. Directions are a bit tricky in my part of Ireland, where you can be in the south even when you are further north than the north. If you see what I mean. Anyway, the house was tiny and the party large, so we sat outside, slowly foundering whilst the sun paled and the moon swelled and the stars came out. If I had a view like that I'd never be inside. Not even on a day like this.