I’ve been spending a lot of time in my parents’ house since then and I found the big black bag of letters in the dining room waiting to be sent for recycling. I started to leaf through them. The first thing that astonished me was that there were so many of them. I wrote a lot of letters from airports. And then from when I lived in Brussels and before that in Rome. I seemed to spend every spare minute I had writing letters [and I know that I wrote to friends as well - I was clearly a writing machine]. They had, I regret to say, no great literary merit but thematically they seemed to cover: looking for jobs; asking for money and thanking my parents for money already received. I was certainly reminded of the extent to which my loving parents had bankrolled my early years in the work place. No wonder they were so relieved when I finally managed to get properly paid employment as opposed to my time doing traineeships and internships.

I let the letters go into the bin. I suppose they stopped when email got going, sometime between 1995 and 1998. Imagine, I am from the last generation of people who routinely putting pen to paper to share news. Who would have thought?

I don’t know why I read this, I know when Georgette Heyer does history it’s dire. This was dire but if you want a blow by blow account of the Battle of Waterloo and a very annoying heroine, this is the book for you.

“Letters to a Young Mathematician” by Ian Stewart

This was foisted on me by a colleague who loves maths and I found it very interesting although the tone is a bit patronising (but the maths examples baffling in places) – it’s written as career advice to a young mathematician so, to be fair, I’m not exactly the target audience. I was particularly pleased to have an explanation of axioms, never having been satisfied with the one my maths teacher gave me at 15: “It’s something that is so obvious it has to be true”. This is both insulting and unhelpful and I’ve been resentful ever since. Until now, anyhow, thank you, Mr. Stewart, for helping me to let go.

“Isn’t It Well For Ye?: The Book of Irish Mammies” by Colm O’Regan

Somebody was bound to give me this at some point. It’s mildly funny. I can sort of identify with the Irish Mammy but at least I’ve never taken the Sunday Independent.

“Six at the Table” by Sheila Maher

I really enjoyed this. It is an account of a girl growing up in Dublin in the 70s told through her love of food. Although each individual chapter is slight the cumulative effect is quite appealing. Herself read it also and enjoyed it. I recommended it to my book club but too many of them knew the author or her husband [welcome to Ireland, we're a small country] and couldn’t face it. One of the chapters had been read out on Sunday Miscellany on the radio and two of our number had heard it and pronounced it dull. I argued hard that it did the book an injustice to take a chapter alone but in vain. If you grew up in Ireland in the 1970s you might like this. Go on, give it a go.

“The Hundred-Year-Old Man who Climbed out of the Window and Disappeared” by Jonas Jonasson

This is Forrest Gump for Swedes. The hero experienced all the great events of the 20th century and met all the most important people. It’s all written in a rather whimsical tone. I loathed it but I am in a minority.

“Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother” by Amy Chua

This is about a very ambitious mother and her very bright daughters and the contrast between the Western and Chinese ways of doing things. I found it very entertaining. As did the Princess and Mr. Waffle. Recommended all round.

“Rebecca” by Daphne Du Maurier

I’m almost positive I have read this before. I don’t remember being so very annoyed by the narrator in the past though. Nor do I remember thinking that Maxim was a bit of a creep and that, all in all, Rebecca may have been the best of the bunch. Mrs. Danvers was a looper alright though. That remained consistent. Still, despite all the caveats, a great story. The best part for me are the beautiful descriptions of the house and surrounding countryside which, if I had read it before, made no impression on me then.

“Life after Life” by Kate Atkinson

I have read all of Kate Atkinson’s books and I think that she is a terrific writer. That said, this got off to a slow start. It’s about getting a chance to live your life again and again and doing things differently to make it better next time. It’s a clever premise and it’s very well done. While this is still a very good book, it’s my least favourite of her books after “Not the End of the World” [short stories] and “Emotionally Weird”.

“Ghosts and Gadgets” by Marcus Sedgwick

This is part of my ongoing efforts to find out what my children are reading. This is about the Otherhand Family who live in Castle Otherhand and are very odd. I found it spectacularly dull but it appeals to the children in my life. I quite liked the illustrations but that was by far the best thing about it for my money.

Worst of all though, I had to make an announcement at mass about the forthcoming excitement. This did not seem particularly challenging. Doesn’t my 10 year old daughter go on to the altar every Sunday and read a prayer of the faithful? Am I not used to making presentations at work? All I had to do was read out the printed text in front of me. I am good at reading. I bounded up on to the altar and surveyed the church. Do you know what, those Victoian gothic churches are built on massive lines. It was the largest space I had ever addressed. And although congregations are falling I thought, as I surveyed the large numbers looking up at me, they could do with falling a bit further. I started to read. I was quavery and short of breath. It was terrifying. I returned to my pew, absolutely mortified. Herself hissed at me, “You were terrible!” Worse, the little old lady beside me said, “You did fine.” After mass, I said to Mr. Waffle, “Tell me honestly, how bad was it?” “Well,” he said, “remember everyone has forgotten about it now except you.” Pause. “It was just the way you sounded like you were going to cry and that the announcement was really sad when you were talking about a party; that was a bit unfortunate.” Oh the mortification. And, of course, I have to go back and see the same people every Sunday forever. Oh horrors. I think I will cry now.

But I hope that we will all settle in well in our new house. The neighbours have been in with wine, champagne and scented candles and have children of appropriate ages who are company for our lot. The mirror has been hung up over the fireplace. The cat is settled. She has managed to lose her collar and magnetic yoke to open the cat flap. We have taped over the magnetic bits of the cat flap so that she can come in anyhow. A strange cat has taken advantage of these new arrangements and wandered up to the landing to have a look around. Michael spotted the strange cat and shouted loudly, and unhelpfully, “Cat!” Nevertheless, cat collar difficulties aside, all seems very promising.

That was a digression. I just wanted to record my unluckiness in choosing to go there on the day when all of Europe’s finance ministers were meeting in Dublin castle (just adjacent), when an anniversary performance of Handel’s Messiah was taking place around the corner on the site of the original performance (Messiah, first performed in Dublin, you know) and concerned citizens were marching against the new property tax (protest unavailing, it seems to be here to stay). It was bedlam. Alas.