Oh stop, I’m not about to get all domestic on you. Far be it from me. No, instead, we’re coming out of hibernation in Hearthill and the mother of the house is in for a dusting. The bones, tired and a bit achey after the long winter’s hibernation give the odd creak, crying for movement.

With this in mind, I put on the runners and take to the road. If you were to stop and think of the obstacles that would stop you from taking to a road in early Spring in North Kerry, you’d never leave the house. Take your pick, early slurry spreading residue, mucky ditches, howling gales, Atlantic spray, Kerry rain.

You’ve been given thirty minutes break, between calving. There’s one cow in the haggard with the crubeens out (calf’s feet showing) and another in the calving unit who looks like she won’t settle down to birth for a while. The farmer will mind the children for thirty minutes, so you have that time to throw on your runners and run. Out away from the domestic into the freedom of the mucky open road. There’s humming and there is hawing.

Sur’ I won’t now, it’s too late, too cold, you’re busy.

Go on.

Warming up for the first five minutes, I drift into the gentle jog that will bring me up the mountain (hardly a mountain by many standards, more like a gentle slope but there’s no telling them) to the sounds of my first track. It can be anything, one of many playlists that will accompany me on a run.

You have to push yourself on the next leg of it. Can’t do it. Keep going. Have to salute that neighbour. Red faced. Breathless. Nonetheless, alive.

You might walk for a bit and then run again and before you know it you are running and singing and feeling alive. Refreshed. Delighted with yourself. Energized.

My first walk to Hearthill eight years ago had me ringing the farmer half way to come an collect me. I had the signs of a decade of good living in a booming economy and the fitness levels to accompany it. So, I know as I face into some months of getting back on track, that I can do it.

Early morning runs await me as the days get brighter and the farm gets busier. A stolen thirty minutes from a busy farm in Spring to put that spring back in the step.