Reasons to be busy (part one of three)

I'm looking at my diary. I'm checking to see what September has to hold.

Bloody hell. I think I'll need to break this down into chunks.

OK. This weekend I'm off to Ireland to catch up with a side of my family I've never met before. Yes, I have Irish ancestry. My mother's parents came over to England in the 1920s. There are some delightful photos of them wearing clothing I was about to call 'period costume', but what at the time probably qualified as just 'costume'.

Most people who claim Irish heritage normally do it in the days running up to St Patrick's Day. I'm sorry, but having a liking for Guinness or owning a Pogues CD doesn't quite cut it. But it's a source of shame to me that, other than a brief stop-over at Dun Laoghaire a few years ago, I'd never visited what the tourist board probably still calls the Emerald Isle.

I didn't even realise I was pronouncing 'Dun Laoghaire' all wrong until relatively recently. Shocking.

It's doubtful whether I'll be kissing the tarmac at Cork Airport on Saturday afternoon. For one thing, I'm escorting my mother, who doesn't stand for things like that.

And when I come back I've got several other Pretty Big Things to do this month. More detail to follow.