It’s Friday evening and we have just finished a week of summer scheme for 11-14 year olds. It went really well. A very high leader to young person ratio meant it was possible for the young people to have a lot of attention. The best way.

Last night I was driving a minibus of girls from the girls residential I was helping out at, to visit Kathy’s new house out in the country. On the way we passed a long line of tractors. A gathering of vintage tractor owners, and I imagine fanatics. The men riding them were mostly older with jaunty caps on and proud smiles on their faces. We beeped the horn and waved and were waved back at! A fun day out for them and for us travelling in the opposite direction, but for the long line of traffic queuing behind them a nightmare stuck behind not one tractor but fifty!

Kathy’s new place is fantastic. It has great potential as she says but is already amazing. We saw instalments of an amazing sunset that seemed to paint the sky for a couple of hours. A fabulous panoramic view over hills and fields with an evergreen treeline. We watched and chatted and went inside and came out and watched some more: the glowing skies and wide horizons where the sun metamorphosed from golden white to burning crimson as it sunk behind the trees. By standing on the fence around the sand school you could catch the descent of the star for longer. As it sank its rays caught on the ivy around the top of the chimney and caused a couple of the girls to run in and call us out to see the soft sunlight dancing like fairy lights on top of the house. The world was bathed in a golden glow that gradually crept higher up the trees, lazily chased away by the bluer shadows of twilight. The final pastel streamers of light hung across the horizon as we drove back towards Belfast. Cana and I drank in the view from the front of the minibus and agreed that sunsets definitely were good for the soul.