Introducing your author, the mother of the baby.

THINGS THAT I AM:

• The proud owner of one strawberry blonde baby girl.
• The loving and always exasperating partner of one loving and always* exasperated slightly younger man.
• The reluctant keeper of one malfunctioning heart.
• A devoted Evertonian.
• A fervent Italophile.
• Supremely crotchety.
• Unrepentantly pedantic.
• Unapologetically intolerant of bad manners.
• High-brow, low-brow, maddeningly no-brow (natural blonde).
• Endlessly immature.
• Not quite as insufferable as I sound.
• A fundamentally decent person.
• Irish.
• Turty tree and a turd.
• Despite my recent trials and tribulations (more of which later, don’t you worry), happier and more content than I’ve ever been in my life. Thank you strawberry blonde baby girl and always* exasperated slightly younger man.

THINGS THAT I’M NOT:

• A parenting expert in any way, shape or form.
• Financially solvent. Money does seem to burn a hole in my pocket. However, I am proud to report that since the little lady arrived, I have never once prioritised buying, say, a lipstick over a jumbo-pack of nappies. How very noble of me.
• A bad cook, although I admit that desserts are not my forte; at least six times out of ten they taste entirely of sugar.
•  A natural suburbanite. I grew up on a farm in the deepest, darkest countryside and have always felt at home amid the bustling commotion of big cities. Obviously I now live in what Wikipedia terms a “large metropolitan village”.
• Always diplomatic. That’s not to say I’m a “say it like I see it”/”tell it like it is” blowhard. As it happens I have an almost pathological fear of offending people, It’s just that I sometimes say THE WRONG THING.
• Earnest. My partner and I call people of this persuasion “Hemingways” because we are gut-bustingly hilarious.
• Easily offended. I tend to see the funny side of things because (a) why not? and (b) there is no (b). HOWEVER, I find racism, sexism, bullying, general nastiness and litterbugs beyond reproach.

*Exaggerated for effect. He’s not ALWAYS exasperated, just most of the time.