Saturday with Cathy Kelly: 'I've been doing arty things — and there's always the laundry!'

Bray is a fabulous place to live — it's great for the dogs and has at least eight charity shops

Cathy Kelly's latest book 'The Island Retreat' is out now at all good bookshops. 

08.30

Either my alarm or Juno, our Siamese cat, wakes me up. Siamese cats are very vocal and have incredibly loud voices, so Juno howls for breakfast/ love/ a hot radiator. PJ brings me coffee in bed, and we scan the newspapers online. We do the New York Times Connections puzzle, and if it’s particularly opaque or full of US sports stars, we discuss getting a crayon and writing a letter to the editor. I have coffee and then muesli or porridge.

10:00

Our dogs will need a walk — they are grand old ladies who’ve reached the age of 16. Bray is a haven for dogs because of all the lovely sniffs of other dogs. We sometimes go to Catalyst cafe on the seafront as it’s dog-friendly and has a treat dispensing machine.

The DART makes it handy to get into Dublin. I like to meander round the bookshops, Sostrene & Grene, This is Knit and maybe the National Gallery.

Bray is fabulous because it has at least eight charity shops. I’m a big fan of charity shopping. It’s a great way of having the thrill of buying things without buying new. My current bargain is a pale blue silky shirt from M&S that was around €5 in the Irish Cancer Society shop.

12.00

I’ve been doing arty things on Saturdays. I recently did a botanical dyeing course at Kilruddery Demesne run by Naomi from thewildthings.ie.

I did a course in Brookwood Pottery a while ago, but never got round to picking up my, er, pot.

I’ve always been interested in craft. I learned embroidery when I was 10 and that was the start of my crafting. I’d sit quietly in my grandmother’s kitchen, which was always busy, and make up little landscapes with my thread. 

I’ve always loved painting and drawing but knew I wasn’t good enough for art college, although I did get an A in Leaving Cert Art. Crafting is a simpler way of painting with colour that is meditative and that you can do anywhere.

14:00

Grocery shopping and laundry have to be done. Because we’re so near the shops, we shop for fresh food a lot. I could live off sushi for the rest of my life. There’s a lovely shop in Bray called Get Fresh, where they have fabulous fruit and vegetables and gorgeous deli stuff. I love a coffee at Gusto, which is right beside Get Fresh and run by a lovely Italian couple.

I’m the laundry queen in our house and have a pristine bucket for woollens with ‘DO NOT USE FOR CLEANING’ scrawled on it. Woe betide anyone who steals my bucket.

I try not to work on weekends, but if I’m finishing a book, I will do. When I’m doing a book tour, I’ll work wherever the publishers have organised, but I rarely accept weekend events.

17:30

The dogs want dinner and have to be fed before the people. My partner PJ can make a meal out of anything and has been making his own sourdough bread for 30 years. If I’m cooking, it has to be planned like the D-Day landing, whereas PJ has that gift of flinging a few things into his cast-iron pot and making something delicious. 

We like having people over — dinner can be anything from a slow-cooked beef stew to a chicken that PJ has boned, stuffed and rolled. I sometimes make my almond flour chocolate cake which I serve with crème fraiche and raspberries.

The Mermaid in Bray is a 10-minute walk away from home. The last thing we saw there was Adam Kay’s This Is Going To Hurt tour, which was very funny but shatteringly real. I spent a lot of my twenties, thirties and forties at gigs. I’ve seen a lot of bands and musicians from Bowie in Slane to Oasis when I was pregnant. 

One of the best gigs I ever went to was George Michael in what was then ‘The Point’. I remember being at a charity event where the Boomtown Rats played and another one where Paul McCartney sang. I’m sorry I missed Flo McSweeney and Leslie Dowdall in the Tivoli last year. They’re fabulous.

21:30

I like to plonk myself on the couch with my current crafting obsession — at the moment it’s wonky bracelets made on a teeny loom. I recently watched Nobody Wants This, which is a comedy about a rabbi and his non-Jewish girlfriend. It’s funny and very clever.

22:30

I never go to sleep without reading. One of my great fears is being stuck somewhere without a book or anything crafty. I’m currently rereading Floor Sample, a memoir from Julia Cameron, who wrote The Artist’s Way. She’s a fascinating woman, being an author, playwright and poet.

Cathy Kelly is a writer and Unicef ambassador. She lives in Bray, Co Wicklow, with her partner and one of her sons, along with two dogs, a cat and a lot of wool. Her latest book, The Island Retreat, is available in all good bookshops.