Adapting a Mary Trump title there for a feeling I’m sure many of us have periodically. House hunting and purchasing have taken up a lot of time over the last six months. Now that we finally have keys to the new place, the work has only begun. The old chap who lived there as a tenant for decades before moving to a care home had been existing in some squalor (e.g., no shower or central heating). This past weekend we did a basic clean, including clearing out all the rubbish left in the outdoor bins. It almost felt like trauma cleaning. We haven’t yet had the fortitude to tackle the kitchen and bathroom, which are so greasy and grimy we might hire someone to clean them for us.

Much more fun has been the garden: we’ve transplanted some hedge plants from our rental garden, planted some trees, pruned the rose bushes, and made a plan for path, meadow and pond.

In the six weeks or so before we actually move in, there is so much to think about. We have a couple of tradespeople already booked, but there are lots of other renovations to research and get quotes for. So much to book, order, buy … we’re going to be bleeding money for the rest of this year. We will take on a few smaller projects ourselves, with neighbours’ help, but it is a very daunting prospect for people with no DIY skills. (And I just want to read instead.)

I should be ecstatic to own a home for the first time, and I do know how lucky I am to have somewhere to live and spare cash for improvements, but right now it all feels overwhelming. I’ve also been glum because I was denied the life insurance we applied for at the same time as a mortgage. I knew my genetic kidney disease would make a policy more expensive, but I wasn’t expecting to be declined outright – especially after the company strung me along for four months. The doctor’s reports they requested said only positive things about how stable my health was, how good my renal function, blood pressure under control. In the end they just looked at the condition name and said no. And that has made me feel a little worthless.

Still, chin up. It’s turned into a beautiful spring with fun outings such as a tour and tasting at a gin factory and folk gigs, including one by living legend Peggy Seeger.

Photos by Chris Foster.

I’m also genuinely enjoying the packing and culling process. Look at this vintage tech I found in a drawer! The Discman and Texas Instruments calculator still work, so I will continue using them.

Alfie is a good supervisor.

Will I ever finish another book again?

Work has taken a slight backseat these days. I also feel like I’ll never finish another book again (though, actually, I’ll probably finish a poetry volume later today). It’s not that I’m in a slump. It’s that I’m currently reading 36 books, though the number I actually spend time with on a daily basis is more like 15–20. The rest languish in a pile next to the coffee table, or on my bedside stack. I’m working towards various projects, but my progress is at a slow crawl:

Requested after me at the library: The Dangers of Smoking in Bed by Mariana Enríquez, If Not for You by Georgina Lucas, Wahala by Nikki May

March releases: You Tell the Stories You Need to Believe by Rebecca Brown, Ghosts of Spring by Luis Carrasco, Groundskeeping by Lee Cole, Brainspotting by A.J. Lees

Reading Ireland Month: Dance Move by Wendy Erskine, After You’d Gone by Maggie O’Farrell, Vinegar Hill by Colm Tóibín

April’s book club books: Paradise by Toni Morrison & Mr Pye by Mervyn Peake

Spring titles: Damnation Spring by Ash Davidson, The Beginning of Spring by Penelope Fitzgerald, Spring by Karl Ove Knausgaard, Sowing by Leonard Woolf

Jhalak Prize longlist: Honorifics by Cynthia Miller (with two more to start in April)

Women’s Prize longlist: Build Your House Around My Body by Violet Kupersmith, The Book of Form and Emptiness by Ruth Ozeki, The Final Revival of Opal & Nev by Dawnie Walton (with two more to start in April)

And so on.

That doesn’t count review books I’m trying to catch up on, a buddy read with my husband, a couple of e-books, and two other low-key thematic challenges I have in mind.

I’m inching towards my end-of-March targets for the current-month releases and Irish books. But most of my reading time has gone to one book I’ve been trying to read since January. By forcing myself to read a big chunk of Hanya Yanagihara’s To Paradise every day – first 40 pages, then 50, now 60 – I have finally passed the 500-page point and hope to finish and review it this weekend. Then I’ll rip up some nasty old carpets!

“People say that life is the thing, but I prefer reading.”

~Logan Pearsall Smith

Has there been more reading, or living, for you lately?