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My mother used to say that you kept something long enough, it would come back into fashion. But of course, I never heeded her, and so all my trendy Gola sports bags and original three-stripe Adidas tee-shirts were discarded, not knowing they would come back into vogue. So too with flared trousers. It must have been the devil himself who designed those in the 1970s and thought it was a good idea, but back they have come again for certain age-groups.

I am writing this on Wednesday evening as I return from the funeral of an old friend who died in the way that has come just too much the norm in the last while. The erosion of childhood memories leaves one deflated. There has been much death since the turn of the year, twenty per cent more this year that for the corresponding period last year.

I am not a believer in the need for utter happiness to be the default mood, perpetuated in the belief that without complete joy, everything else seems mundane. On the contrary, I feel that there is more fulfilling contentment to be secured from having overcome a struggle than being handed joy on a plate.

As a child in Mayo, I always had a great sense of the potential for hope that comes with this time of the year. We had three wooden lake boats for fishing on Lough Mask, and every winter, they were upturned in our garden and allowed to hibernate against the harsh winds and rain while the fishing season remained shut. And then in late January, the boats would be turned again and the process of getting them ready for a new season would begin.