Who fears to speak of Easter Week? Once again we have Mr Tony Blair flying into Northern Ireland and this evening travelling South to team up with his fellow-trouble-shooter, Mr Bertie Ahern, to bang heads together and sort out the latest crisis in the peace process.
Political insiders were warning last night against premature talk of breakthroughs, miracle cures or instant solutions. That's not the way it is with logjams, they were saying.
But there was also a quiet confidence in the air. Headway had been made on the North-South bodies and the new departmental structures in Northern Ireland. We are getting there, but we are not there yet, was the message.
No doubt getting those last few metres to the line is Mr Blair's agenda this morning as he holds talks with representatives of the various parties at Stormont House. Push is coming to shove, it's time to cut a deal, don't send me naked into the Dail chamber, will doubtless be his message.
The signs at this stage are that, while he may not have a definitive and detailed package to unveil, he should nevertheless be able to speak with confidence about the progress being made and to give assurances to the TDs and senators that the momentum is back in the process and, yes, it really will be all right on the night.
But well-placed sources cautioned against expectations that Mr Blair would "play up" the British-Irish Council at the expense of the other new institutions such as the new executive and the North-South ministerial council. The presentation in Leinster House tomorrow has to be just right, and if Downing Street didn't have the wit to realise that undue and disproportionate stress on the "council of the isles" (as it is colloquially known) would ruffle nationalist feathers, then Iveagh House or the Taoiseach's Department would be quick to draw attention to that danger.
Mr Blair will clearly advert to the new council as an indication of the better-than-ever relationship between Dublin and London, but in the context of implementing all aspects of the Belfast Agreement. After all, one leg of a tripod cannot be longer than the other two.
Again, the notion of a sudden breakthrough on decommissioning is being played down. Any journalists who run with that idea are likely to get a "heavy breather" phone call from their friendly neighbourhood spin-doctor. Decommissioning is not what this week is about, at least not directly. The plan has been to copperfasten progress on the North-South bodies and the number of new departments, with a view to making decommissioning easier to resolve the next time it has to be faced.
Interestingly enough, there is said to be a tacit cross-party alliance between the Ulster Unionists and the SDLP on one key issue, namely the idea that equality and all it entails should be the responsibility of the First and Deputy First Ministers, and there should not be a separate Department of Equality.
The rationale of this is as follows: under the d'Hondt system of allocating ministries, the Democratic Unionist Party would quite possibly be able to take the equality portfolio if it so desired. That wouldn't suit the SDLP. Alternatively, the prospect of a Sinn Fein minister for equality is enough to give unionists the heebie-jeebies.
There has been a working assumption in most quarters of the peace process that the unionists would eventually agree with almost everybody else that there should be 10 ministries. That has not been agreed yet, but it remains a firm working assumption. But the unionists will not give way on this issue without getting something in return.
Ever so gently but nevertheless firmly, Mr Blair will put the squeeze on the Northern parties today. Prime ministers, especially in these image-conscious times, do not like being made to look weak and ineffectual. The power balance between Downing Street and the leadership of the Ulster Unionist Party has been compared with the relationship between President Clinton and the mayor of a large mid-western city in the US. In the end, Downing Street and the White House nearly always get their way.
And then, of course, there is decommissioning. There has been a distinct paucity of ideas on how to square this particular circle. But the game-plan at this time is to go to the republicans when the 10 ministries and various North-South bodies have been nailed down and say: "How about it, chaps?"
The best information available suggests that the republicans may be willing to provide flexible and soothing language but not one bomb, not one bullet, not one ounce of Semtex at this point in time.
Gen de Chastelain is still waiting in the wings. The difficulty for him and for the entire peace process is that he can only say his piece once. If it doesn't work, there are no second chances. That is why it must be ascertained in advance that the UUP will take de Chastelain's word as an officer and a gentleman on this crucial issue.
Mr Ahern's comments on the time-frame for achieving a united Ireland provoked the usual and predictable expressions of outrage from unionists. Privately, senior UUP sources said they would prefer if he hadn't said it, but they understood the need to massage one's constituency, especially at party conference time. Unionists do it, too, from time to time.
Likewise, the Trimble camp would doubtless prefer if the "baby barristers" of Union First piped down and kept their dissent to themselves, but the real worry must be that cracks will begin to appear in the upper echelons of the party. That is the one problem Mr Trimble cannot afford.
Overall, the mood in the unionist camp is apprehensive, as with people who are about to make a leap into the unknown. Sinn Fein, meanwhile, will be watching, hawklike, every move the two governments make over the next week or so. Weatherwise, the winter may be setting in, but politically the ice is starting to melt.