In my last post, I described how the willow found me, and how it has become the backdrop to my life. It was inevitable, how could it not be, when they are drawn to watery spaces. Like is attracted to like, and I live in the wettest part of Ireland, where it is said there is a lake for every day of the year.

We have just had two unusually balmy weeks of sunshine; every morning, we awoke to sunshine, and the sky stayed cloud-free until bedtime, and beyond...