A definite shortage of bunting in Dublin 6 this morning but that’s no more than I expected. Ireland has been a republic since 1949, after all. Neither did I expect to see anything of The Wedding because we don’t have a television. My plan was simply to buy a copy of Hello mag next week and critique the hats.

However… Mr F had a long-standing hospital appointment and I was amazed to find the female staff were all in such a tizz about The Dress they were glued to TV monitors and running very late. So I ended up seeing the whole thing, soup to nuts. And my husband, who was there for an MRI, can consider himself very lucky that his non-stop sighing, groaning, sneering and newspaper rustling didn’t land him in the Emergency Room with a busted jaw and me escorted from the building by a couple of ban ghardai.

As annoying as this grumping was I suspected a certain amount of posturing was going on. I happen to know my husband admires the Queen. But he kept up the bellyaching all the way back into Dublin and on through lunch. We then went our separate ways. He, home for what I hoped would be a mood-sweetening siesta, me, to the shops in search of a dress for, funnily enough, a wedding. Imagine my surprise when I opened the front door just now to hear the sound of cheering crowds.

I said, ‘Are you listening to a match?’

‘No,’ he said, ‘I’m on Youtube watching The Kiss.’

I swear.

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And a footnote on the happy subject of marriage. These are hard times, belts are being tightened and there must be many prospective philanderers worried about affording a super-injunction when they suddenly need to protect the feelings of their family. I have a really great idea, a cast-iron, zero cost alternative to the expensive business of going to law: keep your fly zipped.