If you want to feel your age, spend an afternoon in the wonderful Museum of Country Life in Castlebar. There are lots of really interesting things to see but it’s scary to realise how many I remember using just a few years ago. How old am I that things I’ve used are in a museum?

A recent visit brought home to me just how rapid change can be.

I’m old enough (just barely, I might add) to remember many of the notes of old money on display. In my lifetime, I’ve gone from getting a 10 shilling note for my birthday to being impressed with the shape of the 50p piece. I’ve gone from the rattle of euro coins in my pocket to paying for my groceries by tapping my phone.

At a family lunch recently my niece was very amused to see her aunts and uncles throw cash into the pot to pay for their share of the meal. She said it was “so cute” to see us use paper money.

As I stood at the display of sods of turf, I became aware that this is something future generations will not see along the sides of the road or in sheds. And it’s not just the turf – open fires, tongs and pokers will all be museum pieces. My daughter was home recently and went out to the shed to get something.

On her return she said, “you still have the ash bucket out there Mam.” We reminisced about emptying the ashes first thing in the morning when she was growing up. How you’d have to gauge the wind out the back door before you put it out or risk hot ashes flying around like a dust cloud. She’s 28 and something she would have done just a few years ago is now almost obsolete.

I smiled when I saw a headless Child of Prague statue on top of the dresser, the head placed beside it. I’m not sure I’ve ever seen one intact or without sellotape or glue around the neck.

I wonder if the next generation will know of the superstition about putting him outside the night before a big event in the hope he would bring good weather.

I suspect like the sacred heart picture and lamp, it won’t feature in too many homes.

I smiled when I saw a headless Child of Prague statue on top of the dresser, the head placed beside it. I’m not sure I’ve ever seen one intact or without sellotape or glue around the neck

The dresser was full of the good china kept for visitors. Now you can find china sets given as wedding presents consigned to the bargain bin in charity shops. I still have a teapot with a tea cozy knitted by my Ma, similar to the one on display. I often make a pot of loose leaf tea and it’s something I think we should hold onto. My mother-in-law always called teabags dust and she wasn’t far wrong.

When I spotted the old phone books, I smiled at the memory of being delighted to have our names listed in it when we got our first home.

When I opened my flower shop, it felt like validation that I was a business woman when it was listed in the Golden Pages. Nowadays, GDPR would have a field day with a book listing your full name, address and phone number being delivered to every house in the country.

As a hobby basket weaver, I know that many of the traditional baskets on display are still being made.

While the creels no longer hang each side of a donkey to bring home the turf, the skill of making them is still carried on.

I don’t remember us ever using a nest woven from straw for the clocking hen or straw skeps for bees but I recently met someone who still remembers his mother using a skib as a strainer.

I have made several skibs but they hang on the wall as a decorative item rather than be used for straining spuds.

From bikes with no battery to help you up the hill to tablets replacing copybooks in the classroom, things constantly change and evolve.

Every generation will see things consigned to the bin or in this case the museum. I’m glad they are preserved there and I hope that means the traditions around some items are passed on verbally even if the items themselves are no longer in use.