Listening to ‘back-to-school’ ads put a grey shade on the day for our columnist, so enjoying a stroll in the beautiful West Cork countryside and some favourite old tunes put her right. It’s her new way to start the day!

• I HEARD an ad on the radio the other day that literally made my blood run cold – a back-to-school ad. In fairness, like!

I think there should be an official date before you can start going on about uniforms, lunches, books etc. Not a word, not even a murmur should be allowed before the second week in August, in fact it should be made law, with fines and all.

It seems like we only had a ‘lull’ of a fortnight, if even, before it’s all cranking up again. Not cool. And as I’m on the topic, I recently heard a broadcaster joyfully telling his listeners how many days it was until Christmas – why would he do that? I can’t remember how many days we have but it definitely seemed way less than I would have guessed. What’s happened to us all living in the moment?

• Anyway, I’ve started taking our dog for walks again recently. He has absolutely no problem getting his 10,000 steps in a day (and more), and I usually exercise indoors but I wanted to distract myself from the back-to-school ads so I’m pounding the byroads with him by my side.

I only mention it as I’m happy to report that the level of biodiversity on our roadsides and our ditches is off the scale. There’s beautiful fuchsia popping up here and there, still plenty of foxgloves, nettles (so, so many), strands of honeysuckle starting to appear (which always reminds me of my nan), blackberries beginning to bud, lots of bees and less joyfully a few fat rats, one of whom scurried in front of me on one of my outings, nearly giving me a heart attack on the spot. Hopefully I didn’t scare off the rest of the wildlife with my shrieks – it helped me to pick up the pace if nothing else!

The only thing I’m not appreciating is the crows. They’re in huge numbers around my house, with a most menacing ca-cawing coming from them all day (and night) as they peer out of the trees. I’ve no idea what the attraction is – definitely not my warm welcome as I’m roaring up at them every chance I get (no need for alarm if you’re driving past)!

• We’ve just had a week of birthdays in my extended family with celebrations on four consecutive days. For one of the occasions I wanted to book a restaurant for a Tuesday evening but found it almost impossible to find any place that was open.

Now, admittedly, it did feel pretty reckless to even contemplate going out for tea on a Tuesday. Normally a boiled egg or some sort of a cold plate would do us all grand on a Tuesday, but it was actually my husband’s birthday, the fridge was looking pretty bleak and he’s not mad about boiled eggs (or anything else I make!) so we said we’d throw caution to the wind.

At least we tried to. It took a while to find a spot with the doors open, which was a timely reminder that we all need to support the hospitality industry’s ‘vat9.now’ campaign or we’ll have nothing open for tea any night of the week, and bleak boiled eggs will be our only option.

• So after many years on this earth I’ve finally found something to get the day off to a brilliant start. It’s not a green smoothie, not overnight oats, not a yoga session on the dewy grass, none of the above. It’s free and something we all have in our homes: Classic Hits FM. Hear me out. There was something wrong with my trusty kitchen wireless the other day and for some reason I could only get reception on Classic Hits. I live for my news update in the morning and always have Morning Ireland on, followed by Oliver Callan who I very much enjoy, and then Claire Byrne. I always know where I’m supposed to be, or what I should be doing according to who is on the radio and would have described myself as a devoted Radio 1 listener – or so I thought. But after just two minutes of Classic Hits, I was singing along to Billy Joel’s She’s Always A Woman, The Communards’ Don’t Leave Me This Way (it was hard to hit the high notes so early but I tried), not forgetting Toto’s Africa and it was brilliant. There were days where I had no clue what was happening with the Aer Lingus dispute or the UK elections, but for a while it didn’t really matter. I’d recommend it.

• Our area had its annual ‘swim week’ last week. It’s a great opportunity for children of all ages and levels to get sea swimming experience and hats off to all those who give their time to organise it. It meant we had to go to the beach every day for five days in a row which isn’t something I’d do usually what with normal life ‘stuff’ needing attending to. But it was absolutely lovely – except for the day when my parking caused a small bit of consternation, and the day when someone else’s parking caused me a bit of a consternation (if it wasn’t for my brother-in-law appearing at the right time, the Coast Guard may have been needed to winch me out of a very tight spot!). Summers in West Cork are always a big challenge for my poor parking skills! Anyway, the mix of sea air (regardless of the weather) and chats over flasks of tea was utter bliss and getting a daily dose of vitamin ‘sea’ is something I’m going to try to keep up.

Between that and my cheeky 8am kitchen discos I think I might reinvent myself as some sort of a guru or at the very least have the makings of a wellness podcast. No? It would surely be a ‘Classic Hit!’

Listening to classic hits on the radio and enjoying a kitchen bop is providing a morning lift! (Photo: Shutterstock)