Look at us swishing along in our boots, all cotton-eye Joe!

1am in Sligo - and at the kitchen table, my sister’s head is bowed in earnest industry over some sprigged cotton which she’s cutting into covers for her jam-pot lids. 

In the middle of the table, 60 jars of her homemade fruitage are amassed round a pot-bellied jug exploding with the last sweet-peas. On the other side of the table, my head is bowed over a commission for an autumn wedding garland. In front of me are my watercolours, mulberry paper blossoms, blowsy silk roses and dried hydrangea. On the floor are boxes of alder-cones, buds, twigs, rugosa hips and seed-heads, gathered from my back field.

What with the sun bouncing off the lake and winking on the jam jars and the rooster pecking at the kitchen door, the scene is so bucolic that I can’t help wondering what our ancient inner-city selves would say if they could see us now; surely only the Country Sisters singing ‘Cotton Eyed Joe’ could be more country than us.