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A CHEF'S CHRISTMAS:I HAVE HAD enough of this air of depression for one year, thank you very much. It got to the stage where I stopped watching the TV in case I saw the news and stopped listening to the radio in the morning. It was all too dispiriting – either that or my blood pressure would soar dangerously upon hearing of the latest round of incompetence and greed from our elected representatives.

On the one hand, my wife Máire and I realised our dream to open a school – and it is everything we could have wanted and more, with seven extra bedrooms bringing our total rooms to 14. Not quite the Hilton, but enough to keep us going. We also oversaw the renovation of a sizeable walled garden adjacent to the cookery school that turned from a part-time hobby to a full-scale enterprise.