Ross O'Carroll-Kelly

Leo’s music teacher, Mrs Gordon, says that Leo has a genuine gift for music and I’m thinking that I need this like Ranelagh needs more launderettes with performance spaces.

It’s, like, the first day back at school for Honor and she eats her muesli with the quiet, steely-eyed intensity of me doing my traditional 500 sit-ups on the first morning of the Six Nations Championship.

It’s true what they say – travel really does broaden the mind. And even though I’ve never seen the point of having loads of knowledge in my head when pretty much everything is available on the internet, you can still end up learning things when you go abroad whether you like it or not.

Sorcha says this is the worst thing I’ve ever done to her. It’s not the worst thing I’ve ever done to her. It’s not even in the top 10. But I don’t think it’s going to help my case if I stort running through some of my greatest hits.

Alice says that was a very interesting reading by me the other morning. She says she’s never heard the story of the Prodigal Son told in that way before.I’m there, “You mean all the different voices?”She goes, “The voices, yes – but also the sound effects.”I’m there, “I wanted to, you know, put a bit of welly into it for the audience. I was a bit of a showman in my rugby days. I think what we’re finding out is that it’s a quality that never really leaves you,” and I give her a big, leathery wink....

I’ve never been one of those parents. You know the kind I’m talking about. Their kid does a poo for the first time sitting on a toilet and they’re taking out an ad in The Irish Times to announce the news. It’s genuinely rare that I find myself in a position to say – like I did on Friday – that I’m proud of one of my children. Honor has now completed exactly half of her community service hours for vandalising hundreds of SUVs across south Dublin. I know it’s a low bor that I’ve set for her, but here we are.

I’m not usually one of those, what I like to call Flat White Wankers, but that’s what I’m drinking this morning, sitting outside the Happy Out Café on the seafront in Dún Laoghaire.

Leo is the first of us to get restless. He goes, “Oh my God, this is so boring!” and this is in the middle of the Protestant equivalent of, like, Mass?