An unusual family resides in this memoir. A father who is a catholic priest, married and with children, who sits around in his underpants, the transparency of which often communicates his displeasure with people or events, and who plays air guitar to rock music upstairs in his office. A mother who is the glue of the family, a little bit dippy on occasions but with a quick tongue. There are siblings who again are not normal and then there is Patricia, always a little on the outside, met and married someone from the internet back in the early days of online dating in a poetry chatroom.

This is a memoir of the times when Lockwood and her husband had to move back home for financial reasons and stayed for about 9 months. Plenty of time to regress to being a child again in the childhood home but also to see your parents for what they are – a little bit mad but very loving and the people who made you what you are.

Funny, cutting, descriptive, warm and all told with the eye and vocabulary of a poet. A really good read.