"Listen lads, we were all perfectly happy when we could blame your mawkish moods and moobs on a good old-fashioned midlife crisis."

Keep watching until the paintball episode and if you don’t like it by then, there’s something dead inside you. Who hurt you?

"...as I matured, I realised love is experienced and expressed every day in a billion tiny different ways not just on a random day in February, and not just in a romantic context..."

“The road to hell is paved with good intentions” is a proverb I don’t say very often, but that particular one is well-known in McCarthy family lore. I gather the boys to tell them the tale of The Silly Man Who Went to Jail Because He Failed to Produce His TV Licence..."

Spend as much time as you can with Mam and Dad

We zombie gals gotta stick together, am I right?

I used to pride myself on my ability to fall asleep anywhere, easily, taking for granted that ‘certain knot of peace’, that ‘soft embalmer of the still midnight’.

I'm taking on No Buy 2025: A year of no shopping for clothes, accessories, or anything indulgent. Can I resist the January sales and avoid temptation? Let’s find out.

Here’s to minding our friendships

"...this particular portmanteau refers to the gloriously lazy, hazy period of December 26 to Dec 30 – so we are slap bang in the middle of it right now, like little piggies in blankets..."