MIRIAM O’CALLAGHAN

Miriam O’Callaghan was in lockdown with her husband, Steve Carson, and five of her children. She continued to host ‘Prime Time’ and her weekend show on RTE Radio One

PRACTICAL

I found myself cooking so much. I would feed the boys and five seconds later they’d be starving again. When this is all over, hopefully I won’t be cooking as much, but it has been lovely to be here with them more. Normally, I would drop some of them to school and then gotoa Prime Time meeting and then spend a lot of time in work, but not being able to do that has made me rethink things. And I have enjoyed being more present.

I’ve also started making my mother’s brown bread and soda bread. She has always given it to me, so I always thought, ‘Sure I don’t need to learn to make my own’. Then suddenly I couldn’t get the bread from her, and I had the time, so I decided, ‘OK, I need to learn to make this’.

She was delighted to part with the recipe and I showed her pictures of the bread on the phone. I tried to make her apple pie, too, but that wasn’t as successful. So I’ve been making bread a lot, and my youngest likes fairy cakes, so there have been a lot of those, too.

I’m channelling Nigella.

PERSONAL

What I’ve learnt about myself now, with certainty, is what I always suspected, that I’m really not a worrier. A pandemic has the ability to create worry in everyone, not just in worriers, but it has confirmed to me that I really don’t do worry. I haven’t worried.

I think it’s how I’m made and I feel blessed. If something bad happens, we’ll face it, but I can’t change it by worrying about it in advance. I’m so conscious all the time that people are sick and suffering and grieving and, touch wood, we haven’t been sick, so that’s important to remember, but I’m not going to solve the pandemic by worrying. I try to keep that strong in the house and I think it’s affected the mood.

You save up strength for real situations and they will come, but now, we’re here and we’re alive and we have to be grateful for that. The most important thing of the lockdown is to keep everyone in the house happy and that’s been my focus.