And so the summer that never really began weatherwise is at an end: we returned to the capital last night and the kids are back at school tomorrow. Meanwhile, I’m eyeing all that firewood I’ve got stacked at the bottom of the garden thinking about whether or not it’s time to crack a match and light the first fire of this post-summer season. All those long, cold nights do have some compensations.

With only a single game left to be played in this year’s championship, we can, I think, face into the winter in a positive frame of mind after the summer we’ve had. Sure, we were outclassed by the Kerrymen in the second half of our semi-final but coming from the position we were in at the end of our 2010 championship campaign, a year that saw us retaining our Division 1 status, winning Connacht – beating Galway and Roscommon on the way (not forgetting London as well!) – and then felling the defending All-Ireland champions has to be seen as a decent year’s work and a very good first year for James Horan and his team.

If I get the time over the coming days, I’ll do a more thorough review of how we fared in 2011 and what this could mean for us in 2012. In the meantime, though, it’s back to all that other post-summer stuff that needs sorting.