| The writer Eoghan Harris, who shares my enthusiasm for returning daylight, has sent me a poem by an 18th century Irish poet Antoine Ó Raifteiri that celebrates the longer days after St Brigid's day, which is now.
I won't paste it in full here, you can look him up online, but it includes the section ('The days will be stretching out. And after St Brigid's Day I will raise my sail'). It captures the joy of this time of year when, after the gradual return of light in January, it gets ever more bright. I write this from a room looking out on to an uplifting, very Ulster morning - not entirely sunny, but not entirely cloudy either. The sun has been pressing through the grey for hours.
On Thursday I took this brief video in Belfast city centre when nipping out for lunch. It is not remotely exciting but what struck me at that sunny moment was the happy, almost bustling atmosphere that you might not notice at the time but you notice decades later (you know, when you see early film footage of, say, Belfast a century ago).
There have been many sunny days after the storm. Most people are now reconnected but Adam Kula here talks to experts to figure out why the restoration took so long.
His report heightens my fear that Stormont neglect is a factor in the infrastructure problems. In another column I try to explain why Donald Trump's distasteful comments on the crash help illustrate why I cannot agree with friends of mine, whose politics I often share, who are fans of the US president. The tragedy in Washington coincided with the anniversary of the Princess Victoria sinking, with an event in Donaghadee tomorrow. A little mentioned fact is that it was a first roll-on roll-off ferry, prior to which cars were put on boats by crane, making the waste of the tragedy seem all the worse. A year on the DUP says it secured 'important gains' in the deal to restore Stormont but Jim Allister says the 'scale of the lies' is ever clearer. I met Sarah Patterson on the sad occasion of her father Ken Reid's funeral last year. Here she talks about how proud he was when she set up The Little Pink Kitchen. Lastly, here is the excellent Jackie McGregor's latest column. Enjoy your weekend, and your reading. Ben | 