Some might say that it's a bit early to be heralding the arrival of summer, and no doubt we're in for plenty more wet and windy days, but it's somewhat hard to avoid the feeling that it's once more on its way.

Everywhere you look you can recognise the tell-tale signs that the place is coming alive and opening up again. I was in Clifden the other day, and had managed to complete two full circuits of the town before my teeth started to grind as a result of the lack of parking spaces. Eventually putting two and two together I reasoned that the best thing to do was park in the church car park, (or the bank car park, or even the Station House Hotel car park) and walk to do what needed to be done. After all, it's not exactly a sprawling metropolis, and it's physically impossible to spend more than five minutes getting from one part of town to another, unless you take into account the number of conversations you get into, or the gallons of coffee you swill along the way.

And anyway, anything's better than joining in that relentless circling of cars around the triangle of streets, like some bizarre take on an old Western movie where the wagon train makes it's stand in the middle of an ever-circling crowd of 'Indians' on horseback. During the summer months in the capital of Connemara, if you stand in one place long enough, you start to recognise the occupants of cars who are only visiting for the day.

Walking in the sunshine, I was amazed at how many people were hard at work on buildings, and it's always a welcome and pleasant sight to see places being fixed up and readied for another season. At this very minute fresh coats of bright paint are enlivening walls bedraggled by the winter, and windows are left wide open to let in the fresh, cool air. Restaurants are preparing to re-open around St Patrick's Day – the unofficial beginning of the holiday season - and the owners of new businesses are nervously hoping for a good first year. Slightly chilly looking people in big coats are once again sitting, prematurely, on the benches outside E J King's, and the flower man is back on Fridays.

For me, an added bonus is that I moved house during the winter. I no longer have human next door neighbours to drive to the cusp of madness with endless drum 'n' bass workouts, it really feels like I'm living in the countryside. My nearest neighbours are a herd of uncharacteristically aggressive cows and a somewhat arrogant pheasant, whom I have no problem sharing the lengthening days with. It's almost time to recommence the sundance rituals, to conjure up a summer filled with enough heatwaves to replace the dim recollections of the summer of 1995. The forlorn looking barbecue will be polished up, its wobbly leg repaired, and the waft of sizzling prawns will tempt passers by on the road to Letterfrack. Here, in a garden all to myself, I intend to spend as much time as possible in awe of the mountains, serenading my new bovine acquaintances with loud music. How they'll take to drum n' bass remains to be seen…(16/3)

e-mail