The past week has been great fun, catching up with Orla’s friends and family in and around Dublin, replete with terrific food and drink.

A particular highlight has to be the trip down to Wicklow to visit our friends Maeve and Danny, like-minded exiles from San Francisco who have built a new life here in Europe. Maeve and Danny live in a farmhouse near Glendalough which Maeve’s family have owned for at least two centuries. The farmhouse, newly restored by Danny, is a charming whitewashed cottage that in years gone by would have been insulated by a thick layer of thatch. If you close your eyes and picture the iconic Irish country residence (and providing you slap on the thatch yourself), chances are you’ll be imagining something like their home. The interior is laid out with all their personal effects from San Francisco, so that walking inside returns us to their days back “home”. Maeve picked us up from Orla’s parent’s home in Dublin, a service she swore took less than an hour to execute; and true enough she swore, for she’s adopted what I understand to be the Wicklow driving style, which amounts to ploughing down narrow country lanes at autobahn-like speed.