A strangely reflective even melancholy day. Is that because unlike our cousins in the northern hemisphere Easter is not associated with the energy and vitality of spring but with the more subdued spirit of autumn?

And we love to dance especially that new one called the Civil War Twist. The Northern part of you stands still while the Southern part tries to secede.

My goal is to ensure the Northern Border is safe secure and allows for the free flow of travel and commerce.

My grandmother was a teacher my sister was a teacher my daughter was a teacher and is now a superintendent in northern California and my son-in-law is a high school principal. I am surrounded.

Home will always be Northern Ireland but my schedule means for the next few years I won't be there as much. I can't do the same things that I did a year ago. That is I'm something conscious of but I'm not sad about it. It's fine.

Growing up in northern California has had a big influence on my love and respect for the outdoors. When I lived in Oakland we would think nothing of driving to Half Moon Bay and Santa Cruz one day and then driving to the foothills of the Sierras the next day.

The need for peace in Northern Ireland goes well beyond political stability. It now speaks to regional Europe and even global stability.

Richard Hugo taught me that anyone with a desire to write an ear for language and a bit of imagination could become a writer. He also in a way gave me permission to write about northern Montana.

When I told the people of Northern Ireland that I was an atheist a woman in the audience stood up and said 'Yes but is it the God of the Catholics or the God of the Protestants in whom you don't believe?

What were once only hopes for the future have now come to pass it is almost exactly 13 years since the overwhelming majority of people in Ireland and Northern Ireland voted in favour of the agreement signed on Good Friday 1998 paving the way for Northern Ireland to become the exciting and inspirational place that it is today.

This is the great thing about Northern Ireland. I walk down the street and people stop me and say things like 'I know you. You're that wee golfer aren't you?' I say 'Yeah that's me.' They say 'Keep it up wee man.' It's very funny and that's why I want to stay here as long as possible.

At each of these northern posts there were interesting experiences in store for me as one who had read all the books of northern travel and dreamed for half a lifetime of the north and that was - almost daily meeting with famous men.

My culture-deprived aspirational mother dragged me once a month from our northern suburb - where the word art never came up - to the Art Institute of Chicago. I hated it.

That feeds anger and I mean when we went and at last thank heavens got towards peace in Northern Ireland we went for justice within Northern Ireland as well as using security well as well as a political settlement but surely that is the lesson.