It’s not just you! As a 40-something, (mostly) happily-married woman with young kids I relate to so much of this, I relish any time I get to myself even if I do share space with “life’s great timekeepers” as you call them. I don’t like to keep track of time myself, as our messy bedtimes will attest to.

I recently moved back to Dublin, where I grew up, after 20 years abroad, and I feel a strong sense of my now being older than those around me, who didn’t leave.