Seedless in Seattle

At the age of 33, I had three new-born future Ireland internationals to feed, a daughter in need of psychiatric evaluation and a teenage son obsessed with uncovering the shameful secrets of our family's 1916 past.

Throw into the mix a sister missing in Orgentina, a wife struggling to lose the weight from her orse and an interfering father-in-law living under my roof.

And just when I thought it couldn't get any more difficult, a moment of madness involving - what else? - the opposite sex persuaded Sorcha that I needed to have the unkindest cut of all.