"It’s lovely coming down to the kitchen every morning and to find Cooper waiting, turning over so I can give him a belly rub."

"That gathering of the same faces every Christmas morning for as long as I can remember has marked the passage of time so precisely. What 2020 has in store for me, a quiet, muffled affair, hardly seems like Christmas at all."

Suggestions for kids, readers of rom-coms and even something for the book snob in your life

"The conversation around ‘censorship’ that comes up about Fairytale every year is tedious."

"I have tried to explain that in criticising the patriarchy, I am not targeting individual men (#NotAllMen) but the societal structure as a whole that has benefited men over women. But I am done explaining", writes Louise O'Neill

This season of The Crown highlights how very young Diana was during all of this — and it’s uncomfortable to look at that through a modern lens

— the Trump presidency legitimised something so dark, and that darkness cast its shadow here too

In those brief, glorious summer months when lockdown was lifted, I returned to my gym classes.

You can shop locally, you can still support small Irish businesses and get beautiful presents that your family will adore, from artisan chocolate to world class skincare.

"It’s fine for adults to say that it’s just one year, that things will be back to normal by Halloween 2021, but that can feel like a lifetime when you’re a kid. Just like us, they need their small pleasures too."