Ask Audrey: 'I’ve agreed to marry a hippy called Clive, you should see the state of him'

Sorting out Cork people for ages

"We all pretend not to know because my Mam loves Colin, it would break her heart to hear he’s gone behind my back to sleep with her favourite daughter."

I got an awful shock when I opened the present from my husband Colin on Christmas morning. Lingerie. In the wrong size. Sorry now, it’s bad enough getting slinky knickers after three kids, but it’s worse when you know they’re meant for your sister. 

My husband has been shagging my sister for three years, it started when we all went to Lanzarote together. The two of them would stay up drinking after the rest of us and have sex in the pool. 

It was a relief if I’m being honest, I got the ick about him years before that when he started buying yellow and red boxers in Lidl. 

We all pretend not to know because my Mam loves Colin, it would break her heart to hear he’s gone behind my back to sleep with her favourite daughter. So it was well awks on Christmas morning when I unwrapped her present in front of the kids. 

My daughter broke the silence with “Mom got a job in the window of Ann Summers.” Not something you want to be hearing from your six-year-old on Christmas morning. I pretended to be delighted, but my mind won’t let go of one question – what did he get me and give to my sister by mistake. Do you think I should break the silence and ask her? 

-Miriam, Model Farm Road

I rang the Posh Cousin for advice on this. She said, I find that hard to believe. I said, the sister being so sly? She said, no, someone from the Model Farm Road going to Lanzarote.

It’s going downhill on our WhatsApp group, Douglas Road Stunners Whose Thoughts Turn to Skiing in late December. The Stephen’s Day tradition is for Fifi_Effortless to post the result of her Google search, ‘Ski resort out of reach for the lower orders’, on our group chat. 

It’s probably no coincidence it never returns a place serviced by flights from Shannon airport. People say there is a posh set in Limerick but I’ve met one or two of them on Munster away days and I really don’t think so. 

Anyway, while the other stunners are trying to figure out the correct pronunciation for Zermatt, my Ken arrives home with the news that his new Mindful Cycling Wellness Crystal business has crashed because Donald Trump is back in power and people are allergic to anything that’s remotely woke. 

So it’s a no-go for a skiing holiday this year, not even to Bulgaria with a plane load of trainee mechanics from Tramore. My Ken said we can probably afford Morocco in May if we play our cards right, I could tell the other Stunners we’re going to a 7-star resort. But I’m not convinced. 

My mother used always tell us at home – never discuss summer holidays before St Patrick’s Day, people will think you’re from Ballinlough. Was she right? 

-Jenni, Douglas Road

She was. My mother used to tell us – always talk about your summer holidays in front of people from the Douglas Road, it drives them bananas. She was right as well.

Guten Tag. This is my first Christmas spent in Cork. Normally I go home to see my parents in Berlin, but I have a girlfriend now and she wanted to show me off to her family in Carrigtwohill like a prize elephant. 

So we went there on Christmas Day and I didn’t have to lift a finger because I am a man. 

Unfortunately, that meant sitting in the front room with her brothers, it was very warm, the Mam as she is called kept adding coal to the fire, it was like an obsession for her. 

But then the weirdest thing – we all went to this thing called the Panto. Have you heard of this. It was in The Everyman theatre, full to the brim with children, listening to a man in a dress telling jokes about Ballincollig. 

Every time he said something was true, the whole crowd would roar back that it wasn’t and they’d all laugh. What is wrong with people? My girlfriend’s family were ‘drinking their tears’ as they say, and they are all in their 30s. 

What is wrong with you Irish people? 

-Jurgen, Berlin and Douglas.

There is nothing wrong with us. It’s just that a man in a dress telling jokes about Ballincollig is the actual definition of high culture in Carrigtwohill.

Hello, it’s Rosealeen here in Ballydesmond. I’m after falling in with the wrong crowd in West Kerry, it’s up for grabs whether I’ll ever get home. 

Berna goes mad for craic after Christmas and she suggested we drive down to Dingle on Stephen’s Day and join in the Wren. 

You might not have it in the city, it’s where chronic culchies dress up as scarecrows and drink themselves foolish for two days. 

Long story short, I’m somewhere outside Camp in a 1996 Hiace and I’m not sure if it’s the best or worst Christmas of my life. 

I’ve agreed to marry a hippy called Clive, you should see the state of him. Is there some kind of rescue service for Cork people who become trapped in West Kerry, tell me?

-Rosealeen, Ballydesmond.

I’m told there is a prisoner exchange scheme, where we can swap you for a homesick Kerry person in Douglas who misses all the gossip and fake modesty they get at home.