I came to a workable accommodation with my Arithmophobia the second I left school; “From this day forward,” I vowed, walking through the school gates for the last time, “I will never again, for as long as I live, put myself in a position where there’s even the tiniest chance that I might have to do mental arithmetic in front of people.

I AM in Dunnes Stores, stockpiling firelighters and recalibrating my relationship with summer.

Home, 8pm. My husband and I are sitting in the conservatory.

I HAVE lost a filling, and my dentist of 20 years has moved away.

IT IS Monday morning, and I wake up, heart hammering, in bed.

THIS evening, we have watched a film about family, love and loss; 90 minutes of bleak human misery which the ending failed to redeem. Now we are in bed.

SUNDAY afternoon, Cork airport. My daughter and I are cutting quite a shape in the departures hall. A recent diagnosis of “bulging lumbar disc” means that I’m doing a syncopated, old-lady shuffle across the foyer, while behind me, my youngest daughter makes the slowest walk across the airport concourse in the collective history of walking and airport concourses.

HOME, 2.30pm. I am upstairs, cleaning the toilet and pondering the gender gap; flushing and brushing, and just… contemplating the differences between women and men as reflected in social, intellectual, and cultural attitudes.

I HAVE been idling in Dunnes Stores for a good 10 minutes, watching a double act — my mother and her old friend Sheila — play out in the pyjama section. We are all wind-blown and purple-cheeked; it is minus two outside and braving the beach has exhausted any desire to ever go out of doors again.

8pm. My husband and I are jogging towards the Eye cinema from Galway city centre, in a last-minute bid to catch a movie. “Something nice and benign,” I gasp, as I’m whisked along.