With all the good weather up until this week, I finally got a chance to finish planting the bulbs I bought at the Ploughing. Even in a few weeks the daffodils were drying up and wouldn’t have lasted a lot longer. The tulips and alliums were still in great shape though. With the bulbs safely under cover, I attacked the glasshouse, which sadly has become more of a storeroom than a gardener’s haven. Last winter I successfully overwintered dahlias, lilies, geraniums and marguerite daisies, so I needed to make space for them all again.

With that job done, I checked out how the cyclamens I planted after Hazel’s wedding last year were getting on. I’d bought about 50 outdoor cyclamens and planted them up in pots – they provided a great splash of colour around the house.

With the wedding over, I transferred them into the ground under a big old beech tree and I was delighted to see them beginning to create my vision of a pink carpet emerging from the bronze leaf litter.

I then had a poke around the orchard to see if my beloved snowdrops were beginning to emerge. Sure enough, the good weather was causing confusion and there they were, with their little spears pushing through the ground with the strength and determination of an Irish maul five metres from the try line. What a fright they are going to get when the real winter arrives and temperatures plummet, as they are not due to flower until at least mid-January.

Further up the garden, I decided to get ahead of my weeding and started at the flower border. That’s when I got another surprise. The snowdrops weren’t the only early riser. Clumps of daffodils were also well up and they are not due to flower until March.

To make matters worse, several of the herbaceous perennials couldn’t make up their minds as to what season it was and were sending out new shoots in every direction. I predict carnage when the weather turns nasty.

On Friday night, Sean and I joined my sister, Eithne, and her husband, Conor, in a table quiz to support four transition year girls from Castletroy College in Limerick. The girls are heading to India to work with the Hope Foundation, the charity set up by Maureen Forrest.

It’s been a while since I’ve taken part in a table quiz and it was great fun. It helped that our table went into the lead after round four and held on to the end. Sean and Conor are very good at general knowledge, but you’d be hard-pressed to fill the back of a postage stamp with what they know about the soaps and music. So you can imagine their reaction when the first two rounds were all about soaps and pop music. At least they weren’t being asked to take part in Strictly Come Dancing.

This is another fundraising scheme that’s sweeping the country. And the work that goes into perfecting a 90-second dance routine is unreal. It’s a credit to everyone who gets involved. So go on, join a quiz team, get dancing or do a bake sale. It all adds up.