I’m still in time to plant my sweet peas despite worrying I had left it too late for this summer

I WOKE up in the middle of the night, the other night, in a cold sweat. Nothing too strange there (if you know you know) but this time I was a hot mess for a very specific reason: It suddenly struck me: had I missed the deadline to plant this year’s sweet pea? It’s a life goal of mine – to have a sea of sweet pea growing up a particular wall in the garden, and it’s something that, to date, has failed me miserably.

Now, last year I didn’t give myself great odds as I didn’t even plant any so that was a complete non-starter. But previous years, despite my best efforts, they just failed to thrive. I suppose I’d be lying if I said ‘my best efforts’ as I just plonked them in the ground and hoped for the best. I can say with confidence, that approach doesn’t yield great results. My grandfather used to grow them along a particular hedge when we were kids and they were stunning and smelled absolutely divine and I’m determined to do the same.

Fortunately, it turns out I’m still in the game for Summer 26. My AI pal tells me there’s still time for me to sow plants directly into the ground this month, so here goes nothing. Although better still, any Diarmuid Gavin types out there prepared to do it for me? Each to our own etc.

It’s unreal how it’s May already isn’t it? When the annual reminder comes through to book Cúl Camp you know the year is slipping.  And how lovely it is to hear the familiar hum of machinery as the first cuts of silage get underway around the countryside too. God bless the work!

So, I was totally surprised that it turned out that Brad Pitt really was in Cork last week after all. I saw a few posts saying he was here filming and I was like ‘yeah, right. Here we go again, pull the other one, do they think we came down in the last shower or what like.’ But it was true. With all the fake news you wouldn’t know what to believe any more.

Here’s something else I couldn’t believe: my bank wouldn’t lodge coins to my account last week. Why? Because they weren’t in a pre-sorted bag. Now, if I was rocking up to the counter with bags and bags of coins I could see where they were coming from, but it was one little bag of around 20 assorted coins that I wished to lodge, along with some notes, and no boy, not possible. The coins would have been counted and lodged in the amount of time it took the staff member to tell me that she couldn’t help. I was about to throw a full-blown strop but just decided I couldn’t be bothered, and besides I already had a headache. I know I sound like a real curmudgeon but it infuriates me how inflexible our banks have become.

Did Emma miss the deadline to plant this year’s sweet pea crop?

Anyway now I’ve got that off my chest here’s my useful tip to you all this week: remember to clean your dishwashers. I strolled into my kitchen last Saturday afternoon to be greeted with water pouring from the appliance and a pretty decent flood already established on the floor. My first reaction was to ring my husband. He was golfing so I admit a tiny part of me was a bit thrilled to be interrupting with a legitimate cry for help, because sometimes I’ll ring him when he’s golfing for pure devilment just to say hi! His advice was to switch it off, which I could have figured out for myself. I actually had it on a cleaning cycle at the time, and what happened was that so much gunk had been dislodged that it was all blocked up, hence the leak. Morto for me.

While I was at it I cleaned my hoover (equally horrifying) and de-fluffed the tumble dryer (even if I rarely use the energy guzzling monster). I was wrecked from all that mind you and never quite got around to cleaning the house – any day now.

We took ourselves off to Kinsale for an afternoon last weekend. We hadn’t been in ages despite the fact that it’s only over the road. Whenever anyone mentions Kinsale I’m always reminded of Aunty Poppy. Remember her? Her real name was Jean Darling and she was a children’s story teller on RTÉ in the 80s, and there was one story in particular that has always stuck in my mind where she was on about ‘going to Kinsale to see the sail boats.’

That was our plan but we ended up in a slot machine spot to dodge the biblical rain. Doesn’t sound very ‘Kinsale like’ but it was great craic. While we were there we had the obligatory peek in an estate agent’s window to oogle the incredible houses and gasp at the equally incredible prices. When in Rome, or Kinsale, etc.

A few thoughts on Kinsale though: I’m always impressed at the diversity of tourists the town attracts. On a rainy Sunday in May there were Dutch, French, English and Americans. And us. They stood out before they ever spoke as they were the ones wearing proper rain gear and hiking shoes while the locals like us were optimistically squelching about in sandals and saying ‘era it might clear up you’d never know’ while peering at the sky.

The diversity of the shops also impressed me – so many independent owned businesses of all kinds with lots to tempt. Which came first though, I wondered: the shops or the footfall? And can we have generate more of this in our other West Cork towns? There’s something to think about for the week.