"We moved from a lovely area in Dublin near great schools, shops and river walks. Our house was a nice half-redbricked four-bedroom property. Conor and Aoife fell in love with a house a few miles outside Portarlington — a beautiful one-off with five bedrooms, three bathrooms, a sauna, gym, two offices and an enormous garden," she recalls.
That super-sized garden turned out to be part of the problem. “How naive was I in not realising it was not so much a garden as a huge field that would need regular mowing and that I would be the one mainly doing it on a ride-on lawnmower,” laments Jean now.
Fuck me, there’s a first world problem right there.
I can go to friends’ book launches and readings by hopping on the Luas, without having to ask someone if I can stay over, or face the drive home in the dark."
