I run at various times of the day, but my favourite time is during a still calm night guided by my head torch. The weather has been generally good over the Christmas period, but there was one particular night that was perfect for my run. After everyone went to bed, I got changed into my running gear. Expecting a cool night, I put on my running jacket and a woolly bubble hat, then called for the dog and off we went. The weather forecast for the night said that it could be between -1 and -2⁰C, but that the east coast will remain slightly milder, where I live.

Not long into the run I quickly learned that I was a bit overdressed, it definitely wasn’t anywhere near as cold as I thought it was and I unzipped my jacket to cool down a bit, but it was still cool enough to keep the bubble hat on. I looked to the sky, I could only see a few stars, the sky wasn’t that clear and I as looked across the valley towards the local town, the orange glow of the street lights merged into the sky, lighting up the revealing low cloud. Yeah, is not going to freeze tonight.

These were narrow roads and laneways that I run. On these roads I can let my dog off her lead to run free and smell whatever took her fancy. She’d never go too far away from me, always keeping me in her sight. You see, she’s a border collie and it’s in her nature to watch me and anticipant my next move, her herding instincts. People often mistake her for a pup, but she is nearly four years old now, an adult. She is on the smaller size for her breed, but because she is a short-haired collie it makes her look even smaller. Most other collies are long-haired, more adapt to coping with the more extreme weather of the uplands of the west coast or the highlands in Scotland, but no, my short-haired collie is more suited to lesser weather extremes of the east coast, I suppose you could call her an East Coast Collie, sounds a bit gangster, but she’s really a sweet girl.

 Making my way west I watch East Coast Collie sniff the night air, I smelled the air with her. I was half expecting the smell  of that clear crisp air, but instead I got the sweet smell of freshly cut grass. For a moment I though, that can’t be right, it’s Christmas. It’s the middle of feckin’ winter!. I turned my head to the left so the light from my headtorch would light up the garden I was passing at the time. Yep, there it was, the freshly made rows of parallel lines up and down the lawn made by the wheels of a lawnmower along with the perfectly trimmed grass. Now, there’s nothing really that unusual about cutting grass at this time of year, we were experiencing a long dry period of weather, and sure if you wanted to mow the grass, why not. However, it was the sweet smell that got me, indicating the grass was full of sugar, and that’s not normal for this time of year. If you ever did cut grass during the winter months before, you may have noticed that the pile of grass cuttings doesn’t really rot away very quickly, and there’s hardly any smell of it. That’s because grass needs sugar to ferment, and at this time of year sugar levels are normally very low and grass doesn’t ferment as well.

 I ran on thinking about this, the more I thought about it and annoyed I was becoming. The smell of freshly cut grass is just not something you associate with Christmas time. Nobody living at latitude 53⁰C north has any memories of freshly cut grass at Christmas, maybe in some micro climate in the south of the island, but not in general. I even had the thought of mowing my own lawn just a couple of days ago, and that pissed me off even more. This is climate change in Ireland, the seasons are changing, they seem to be merging into just two seasons rather than four, summer and some sort of hybrid of autumn and spring while winter has been eliminated. Could be just a once off, but no, I remember last January being freakishly warm. I try to remember the last time we had a long spell of frost, it’s definitely well over three years ago now at this stage. I remember 20 years ago battling the ice while milking cows, smashing the ice of the drinkers inside their sheds, di-icing the milking machine, and carefully walking the cows across the icy yard nervous that they might slip and do themselves an injury, cow hoofs are not made for icy concrete. This could go on for weeks, you’d watch the weather forecast after the 9 o’clock news at night, no smart phones in those days to check the weather, and praying that a thaw would come sooner rather than later. Hard weather only seems to come now and again these days, 2010 and 2018 are probably the only two hard winters in the last 15 years.

Now rather than looking on at the weather forecasts hoping for a thaw, I’m looking on hoping for a spell of frosty weather. The ecosystem needs it, I need it, this is the time of year for rest before the new growing season begins. But with the seasons changing, plants and animals are getting confused. Some plants are flowering way too early, when their pollinating companion, such as bee’s, are still in their winter dormancy, that plant doesn’t get to reproduce and then the bees wake up when its too late and their early spring source of food has already been and gone. And it’s us, it’s us humans that are the leading cause of climate change. And we could try and ignore that fact all we want, “sure why should we care when other people or countries are doing this and that, it’s not my problem”, I hear some people say.

I run on, at this stage I have summitted the hill I was running and was making my way down the far side. East Coast Collie usually stays at the top of the hill trying to figure out if I’m continuing on for a looped run or if I’m doing an out and back. She smart enough and doesn’t want to waste her energy climbing back up the hill if I’m running an out and back. I’m going a little further tonight, I disappear about the bend and as she likes to keep me in her sight I soon hear her coming galloping down the hill after me. As she catches up with me excited to continue on for the loop, I stop and turn to head back home, sorry dog, it’s an out and back tonight. She looks at me with a side eye and a half a bark as if to say ‘fuck you, what’s the point in this anyway’, well East Coast Collie, it’s about getting out, smelling the freshly cut grass, getting fucking pissed off about it, and being OK with the discomfort in that!

Ultan