The spectacular is easy. It’s the every-day routine that gets me.

I have wondered about work as a train conductor. Or as a security guard. Or a ticket seller in a cinema. Or any job where you just do what you’re supposed to do. With as little stress as possible. As predictable as it can be. No surprises. No pressure. Where I’d just have to sit it out. It would give me peace of mind, I imagined. A solid doses of boredom.

Then I wondered whether work and life like that would be good for my mental health. The reality of life seems to be, at least in my case, that all sorts of unforeseen things happen that for some magic reason all acquire a dynamic of themselves. They start off as what seems to be a nice, manageable idea. And then, sooner or later, mutate into something that takes over my life.

And here’s me, at 12 or 13 years old, planning my escape to the never-ending forests and lakes, the Canadian wilderness. How did I end up in Dublin.

When we met Pádraig’s friends on the ferry back to Dublin, one of them said to me that he recognised something of Pádraig in me. That there was a demeanour we shared. Not sure how Pádraig would have liked that being recognised or even said, but I thought it was one of the most wonderful things anybody had said about us in some time.

I like to think we do. And much more. Unspoken.