I AM cheering up a lesbian on a sofa, in London; a “washed-up old lezzer”, as my sister describes herself, now that she is single again at 45.

HOME, 11.45 pm.

Howth, 9.30pm, and I am in hotel room 251, on one of three single beds, reading my book, anticipating the arrival of my two younger sisters from Dublin airport.

CLOSE your eyes and picture this.

EVERY time I see a baby, I think to myself “I want your skin, newborn”.

IT’S 8am.

I WANT to lie down and watch the trees stipple sunlight on the world, down in the garden with the moon daisies, on a blanket with my book.

CORK AIRPORT, 3.20 pm, and I’m awaiting the arrival of my brother. Not the older one I stabbed in the arm with a sharpened pencil for stealing my pillow (don’t look at me like that) who didn’t deserve it. No, it’s my younger brother; the one who used his four sisters as psychological punch-bags, whom I called “fatso” — who deserved a sharpened pencil, but never got it because he was bigger than me.

INSIDE all of us lies a secret history; the story of an immense journey told by our DNA — the biochemical molecule at the heart of the reproduction of all life.

IN THE current economic climate, when jobs are scarce and precarious — I told myself earlier this year, “You must be prepared to shoot yourself out of your comfort zone like an arrow.