Queues out the door in the post office! And then the stamps are gone up again. Sixty EIGHT cents each. Says I to Tina (Tina’s the new postmistress. A grand girl altogether. Would you believe she’s a ZUMBA teacher in her spare time? Zumba! if you don’t mind. She’s always telling me I should try it. ‘I will not Tina’ I says to her ‘with my knees. I’d be up in the hospital and then maybe I’d pick up some sort of MRSA or that kind of thing’.)

ANYWAY, where was I? Oh yes says I to Tina about the stamps going up – says I “Tina it’d nearly be cheaper for me to drive around with the cards myself. Especially Kitty Colligan’s one as she’s only over the road” Not that she’d notice whether she got one or not poor thing. Gone very forgetful. She sent me a card last year but she never wrote in it. I only know from the way she spelled our address. Always put two Rs in it for some reason.

ANYWAY Tina laughed. “You could be right Missus” says she “but don’t tell Head Office I said that” Ah she’s a grand girl Tina. She’d be a great catch. I think there was some sort of a ‘boyfriend’ on the scene a while back but I don’t think there’s anything happening now. He was a bit of ‘yoke’ by all accounts. Fond of the drink. She’s as well off without him. “I haven’t time” says she “with all the classes.” Still though, you’d like to see her meet a nice fella.

They’re hard to spot these days. “Would you be trying this Tinder?” I said to Tina one day. Jennifer is always on it. I didn’t know a THING about it but there was one day were watching Ireland’s Fittest Families and I said ‘Isn’t he a fine looking fella? And Jen says “Oh no Mam! Swipe left.” “What’s Swipe Left?” I hardly dared to ask. The lingo they have now. And it’s usually about Sex. But she says ‘Swipe Left is what you do on Tinder if you don’t like the look of someone’. And then of course I had to ask what Tinder was and Jen got it up on her phone. Well! You should see the state of them on it. Lads with their shirts off and the whole lot.

But no Tina wants nothing to do with Tinder. “I prefer to see them face to face” says she. I must say a prayer now she meets a nice lad.

Or maybe she might meet a nice girl. You’d never know. Didn’t Paudie Proctor’s youngest ‘come out’? Isn’t that what they call it? And she brought the girlfriend down to meet Paudie. Paudie was beaming. “I was as excited” says he. “I got cleaners in and everything. The place’d be in a state since poor Anne died so I’d be mortified. Because you know, two women like they’d notice twice as much. But shur I needn’t have bothered. The first thing she noticed was the dog. She was all over the dog. A grand girl altogether with a good job. I think she’s a Vice-President of something or other with an American crowd.”

Paudie’s a fierce nice fella. I suppose he’d be a bit old for Tina.

ANYWAY I’d better get back to these cards. I got a few packets from the Holy Chapel of the Divine Mercy Of The Sisters of The Blessed Truth. They’re nice. I wouldn’t be a Holy Joe now but I hate these oul Happy Holiday things. It’s either Christmas or it isn’t. I always get a few spare in case I get caught out.

Himself arrives in. “The oil man is outside. Have you the chequebook?”

“Swipe right” says I. Of course he wouldn’t know what I was talking about. I’d say he thinks Tinder is fuel.

'Mammy' is an Irish mother of four, grandmother of a few. She lives near the small village of Kilsudgeon, a place that has been waiting for ages for a bypass. She is married to Himself, an easy-going sort of a fella who drives a zero-four Passat. Mammy herself has the Almera and come to think of it, it should be due for an NCT one of the days.

'Follow @irishmammies on Twitter. The Christmas Book of Irish Mammies is out now.'