When people talk about their favourite scents, I wonder why nobody mentions sun block. What’s not to like?

It means it’s sunny or you’re on your holidays or on the beach. That and the sizzling whirr of the silage mower and voilà, for me, summer has arrived.

Last Saturday I splashed on the sun block heading out for a run in the park. Suddenly it felt and smelt like I was in Portugal.

Lockdown has acted as the perfect reboot of my “appreciate the simple things in life” button.

Combine it with middle age and I’m deriving the greatest of pleasures from the simplest of events such as tweezing increasingly frequent wiry eyebrow hairs.

It doesn’t get any more middle-aged than searching for a curly eyebrow hair to satisfactorily ping out!

The last time I had a professional haircut the barber explained that grey eyebrow hairs grow outwards.

So now I am growing grey eyebrows am I? Well I did turn 48 at the end of April. As a young at heart, I feel ancient! But I try to console myself with the fact that Ole Gunnar Solskjaer, Thomas Tuchel, Brendan Rodgers and I were born the same year and they are considered relatively young in soccer parlance. Between the four of us, there’s only the one Champions League title however thanks to Thomas last Saturday.

Whatever about the buzz of leading a team to Champions League success, it’s hard to beat the buzz of finally getting around to cleaning the fridge, a trip to the bottle bin or brushing the balcony decking.

I had to step over the black bin bag filled to the brim with empty bottles. It’s the modern-day version of going to confession

As Thomas was basking in Porto, I was beaming from ear to ear having completed all three chores earlier Saturday. You would not believe how good it felt to clear out the fridge and wash down the glass shelves. So much so, that I opened it a couple of times Sunday evening just to admire my fabulous work.

Bottle bin

The visit to the bottle bin is another one of those psychologically replenishing events. “Please don’t tell me I drank all of those craft beers”, I’d whisper to myself every time I had to step over the black bin bag filled to the brim with empty bottles. It’s the modern-day version of going to confession. You feel cleansed once you have disposed of them. And just like the privacy of the confessional, if you pick your time carefully, you can get the job done without the neighbours noticing.

Also amidst my house cleaning extravaganza over the weekend, I found a couple of old T-shirts at the back of the wardrobe, great timing for the summer.

Appreciating the little things as opposed to the time I availed of the invite from Brown Thomas as a “valued” customer for a shirt-fitting session. Is it any wonder we had an economic crash?

But the most pleasure came on Sunday morning when I woke up to two WhatsApp messages from my daughter, Deirbhile. She had cycled from Castleknock to Seapoint with two friends to swim at sunrise.

I smugly conflated her beautiful videos with the ones I had seen from the night before of the street party in Dublin and felt very proud that she has her priorities right.

Anyway, getting back to the sun block. It’d been so long since I’d needed it, I’d forgotten the folly of plastering ones forehead before going for a run in the heat. My eyes are fine again, thanks!

GAA format

Maybe the new GAA national football league format is the way to go. For example, as a result of one last minute score in another game, Cavan went from going from possible promotion to Division 2 to possible demotion to Division 4. Doesn’t get more dramatic than that!