Of course our fates aren’t written in the stars, but it's a comforting fantasy | Alex Clark

Mercury retrograde? It recently came for me and, for a while, I refrained from mocking astrology

Barely had the last scoop of topsoil been patted into place when the rain came. And in an unfathomable half hour, it destroyed both a fortnight's work and what was left of our lockdown cheer.

And all we could do was stand there, watching torrents of water lift up great clods of our newly harrowed field, transport them merrily over our equally new storm drain and then carve deep channels in the steep earth banks at the back of our house. Eventually the sky cleared, leaving us only the task of clearing tons of mud from the paving outside the kitchen, repairing the ruined slopes and reseeding the couple of acres we'd been readying for the arrival of the sheep. Such are the ways of life in rural Ireland. No biggie.