"I haven’t spoken to enough Waterford people to understand what Waterford got right. But the few answers I got all said, in local government, there were the right people in the right jobs at the right time with the right attitude to change an Irish city for the better."

"Historians, technologists, archivists, and a whole Captain Planet of heroes have been painstakingly reassembling bits and bobs from the records."

It’s weird watching yourself recorded unbeknownst. Frequently a privilege reserved for shoplifters and others in trouble, we are increasingly watching ourselves back.

Research — by someone, somewhere — suggests that good news is good for mental health, improves mood, counters our amygdala’s assumption the world is full of bears, inspires you to take action, gives hope

"The civic amenity is good for mental health until you try to back a trailer into a Bulky Waste Bay, though. Which is what I was trying to do. I’d never reversed a car with a trailer before."

With Horrible Histories, my children now know more about the various Queen Marys than I ever did. I realise I was never taught much about the English apart from what they done on us. But let’s fill the Olympia with our own history.

You’ll have plans for the summer. That’s the problem with it. Expectations are high. You’ve made a list, but it’s too ambitious. What about a mainly manageable one? 

It’s the idyllic countryside, barrelling out the door to go adventuring, the wearing of ragged old shorts and patched up jumpers, placid horses, secret passageways in wood panelling, and swimming in clean rivers. 

Regardless of what they are, I will eat my village's entire winter stores of biscuit while standing at the sink, without any memory of ever having eaten them

Every so often, a cold wind of change sweeps through the house, when you declutter and nothing is safe