5 pm.

I’M IN Stansted airport with two of my sisters, heading for Lisbon, where our youngest sister is waiting for us.

My three sisters and I have just arrived at our Airbnb apartment in Lisbon and bagsied bedrooms, with disappointing results; I got the box room and have taken my disappointment off to the toilet.

MONDAY. I’ve been having a secret love affair for two weeks but have managed to keep it on the down-low. Heaven forbid my husband should ever discover that I’ve fallen in love. With an old bike.

Our first Airbnb booking arrives this afternoon; my husband is strimming the back garden and I am on the phone to my sister.

I’M thinking of doing Airbnb. I tell a friend.

If you’re a maker of any sort, as I am, you’ll know that your ego is at least partially dependent upon your ability to sell what you make. 

Driving towards Cork Airport to catch a flight, “I feel a bit odd,” my husband says.

Weekly diary with Aida Austin

Never having had a menopause herself because she “had to have the whole blasted contraption whipped out at 40,” my mother is curious to hear about mine. “So,” she says on the phone, “how’s it going? Are you still boiling to death?”