We will be going for lunch soon to The Good Thing’s Café and we are settling in on Easter Sunday morning.

It made a good change arriving at Dublin Port in daylight. The last three times it has been late at night and the place has been shrouded in dark and we have managed to get lost driving out of the city to the extent on one occasion we managed to end up in Dun Laoghaire and we had to find our way out from there on more familiar territory.

On Saturday evening the sun was still out and the sky blue and the Wicklow Mountains hung grey and high above the city as we drove out into and the across the middle of the country.

Fifteen years ago it took up to seven hours to do the drive from Dublin to Ahakista. The road went through every small town and village and there would be hold ups for tractors and bent out of shape cars making their way back from the pub. Now a dual carriageway has been carved out across the country and all those towns and villages just pass in a blur of signs that count down the kilometres to Cork City.

Last night we did the journey in slightly less than four hours and the pub was still open as we pulled in so a pint could be bought to slake the thirst after that time cooped up in the car.

Sunday morning and the sun is high in the sky which is blue and clear. The lawn is still marked with fine patches of sand thrown up by the January storm and there are shifts in the pattern of the garden where it has been scarred and marked by the wind and water. Great hefts of stone have been shifted and knocked over like so many plastic bricks thrown around a play room. The pier patch looks like a drunk giant down from the pub as been at it pulling apart the wall and dropping the pieces of rock back into the sea looking for loose change so he had enough to buy itself one last pint as the storm raged behind.

We have sat outside the split yellow door and drunk coffee and eaten our bacon sandwiches for breakfast.

There are boats out on the water and two women in black wetsuits are out swimming across to Owen Island their voices carrying across the water as they talk.

The hills look chiselled and sharp against the blue sky as if the winter weather has scoured them clean of all their softness and light.

We will be going for lunch soon to The Good Thing’s Café and we are settling in on Easter Sunday morning.