You have to be a little bit sneaky when you want something on a farm. There’s always a queue. Look, this year there was a slurry tank, a course and a milking parlour before us. In fact in ten years, there’s been a lot before us. And the luxuries you have to squeeze past like they’re sales pitches.

A trip to New York. Think of it as an investment, in the farm, your marriage, our mental health. We can do it in the quiet of the year. When the cows are dried off. I know, I know, I say, holding the brochures in and around his vicinity for a month, it could be a bad year. Then again. A good year like a bad year in farming is like a surprise. You never know. It’s a toss of a coin.

Then again, you could hold this pitch when say for example, maybe, when, em, he hasn’t sleep in a few nights in the Spring. I know. I know. Sneaky but stick with me. It’s for his (read our) own good.

You’re feeling sleepy. Ten calves have arrived in forty eight hours. Wouldn’t a soft bed in a New York Hotel with your wife be dreamy. Oh so sleepy. There will be Manhattans and fun and New York adventures and so many dreams for a sleepy, oh so sleepy Dairy farmer.

Sounds good doesn’t it?

And before he knows it, he’s sipping that Manhattan in the Tavern on the Green in Central Park and his face is saying ‘Well, ain’t this life grand.’

Well, when you’re married ten years, you get to know the short cuts.

He’s back on terra firma, checking out the cows after I stole him away for five whole nights without the kids to celebrate our anniversary after ten crazy years. And a break is really as good as a rest. And when you’re married to the coolest, calmest man in well, actually, the universe, your holiday is a meditation where you get to enjoy every moment in the company of your best friend.

Back to the grindstone, the hooting and New York twang is just a ringing in our ears as he teaches the three Yankee capped boys how to play baseball (using a Youtube video) and they roar and shout about rules and catches and home-runs in a North Kerry green field basking in the yellow November light. Now in a more New York state of mind. Badabing.