It's definitely Turn-of-the-Year Blues. Too much eaten and maybe too much to drink. So many Christmas cards received and not so many written. Everything in a mess on January 4th still. God knows what's under all those papers and cards and empty cardboard boxes. You go out into the garden for solace. It is a lovely spring-like morning - sun, blue sky, almost balmy. But we know and have been told that it will not last. Still, the bulbs are poking up: snowdrops, crocuses, daffodils and narcissi. But not to bloom for a long time. Don't get carried away. The lawn is a squelchy, balding thing. One bright spot - the witch hazel is out: the flowers like tumbling tassels on some pixie's hat, all loose yellow strips with, in there somewhere, the yellow, a hint of brown. Or is it purple? And the winter cherry is holding out bravely, still not too tattered. Rivers are up, and the salmon have a good run. Newspaper coverage in Dublin seems not to be what it was. Pictures of a long line of anglers up at Islandbridge on the Liffey, and stories of the money paid by such-and-such an hotel for the first or the best caught - to be offered to their restaurant clients that night - used to be regular. The anglers, you hear, are still there, but not the salmon. Heard on radio about the first salmon of the millennium on day one before 9.30 and there may be some time until the huge prize offered by the Minister - £2,000 to be given to the charity designated by the lucky man. But the catch-and-release conditions, and the photographs must be well authenticated. Maybe done by today. And Lorna Siggins recommended a new book by Sean Nixon, formerly of the Western Fisheries Board. The title would cheer you: Guarding the Silver - A Life among Salmon and Sea Trout. That should have a good run, too.
A most engaging way of seeing in the millennium was that of a young couple who were holidaying near the coast in the West. On New Year's Eve they set off towards the sea, which was nearby, each with a snipe in one pocket and a glass in the other. The snipe, of course, being a snipe of champagne. On the hour, with the hillsides and villages sprouting brilliant fireworks, they solemnly toasted themselves, the families and friends and everyone - to the sound of the breakers behind them.
Oh, if you're short of a New Year resolution, just plant ten acorns - in pots, if need be.