Love your body. We’ve heard it all before, and to most of us, raised on a diet of, well, diets, skinny celebrities and wonder cures, it’s in one ear and out the other. But body image is a fundamental part of who we are, and it affects everything from our relationships to our careers, no matter [...]
We live in an age of unprecedented equality between parents, but, almost three years in, I can confirm that it’s news to many people that men can be parents too. Many of my female friends out-earn their husbands and partners. Sometimes, the early rationale for their career decisions included an expectation that the man would take [...]
When Gay Byrne spoke to Ray D’Arcy this week about the TV show, ‘Once More With Feeling: The Meaning of Life’, which aired last night, we all perked up a little bit, and listened. Perhaps because of his reticence in expressing his opinions over the years, Gaybo has been conferred, as he ages, with an almost [...]
Happy birthday to my son, Ferdia. It’s been one hell of a year since this little boy burst into the world in rather a rush, kicking and curious and ready for action. https://www.instagram.com/p/BZEw7MqB6Sn/?taken-by=deshocks My beautiful blond boy has turned me into the kind of mother I always laughed at. My husband says he knew almost [...]
It's been one week since I returned to work and said goodbye (for a few hours a day at least!) to the world of nappies, puréed pear and hour-long, often unsuccessful, attempts to leave the house. I enjoyed my maternity leave - it was busy, with a big move in the middle of it that I [...]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iYPnUrREbRg It’s one of those emails that fills you with dread… are you ready for your ten year college reunion? Am I heck. I was a joiner in college. I was the best gosh darn joiner you ever met. I was on the students’ union, joined about 40 clubs and societies, and generally made a [...]
Picture the scene. A girls' boarding school, circa 1996. A large number of tweens from the local primary school in costume, pacing the floor as they rehearse their speech and drama for the big exam. A locker open. A tantalising glimpse of a bag of mini Toffee Crisps, spilling over. SONY DSC Speech and [...]
Dear Diary, It’s been about 16 years since I kept a diary, and when I did, I was younger even than 16. I thought I was going to be the next Anne Frank (tragic death aside) and that generations would find my diaries, marvel at the unfairness of my life, thrill at the mundanity of a [...]
It was my first visit to London in three years. It was also the closest thing I’ve had to a reunion of my college class in nearly ten years, as so many of my classmates have ended up there. The week before, I’d visited a friend at home on his family’s farm. One of four kids, [...]
Eleanor Roosevelt said once that we should do one thing every day that scares us. Yesterday, I got out of bed at 5.45am. That might not scare all of you, but to me, that’s the middle of the night, and not a time I regularly see on the clock unless I’m up for a train or [...]
