My husband's search for meaning kept leading him back to his youth, writes Kate Holmquist

The dog attacked the padded envelope as it slipped through the door. Amid the shreds was a shiny red box - empty. The dog was later discovered delightedly chewing something gauzy and black - definitely in the lingerie category.

So now the fans were sending my husband, Ferdia MacAnna, their smalls.

A forensic investigation of what remained of the item revealed one stretchy bra strap and one see-through cup that wouldn't have fit a midget. I gathered it all up and placed it on my husband's desk without saying a word.

Sometimes it's best not to.

Later that day, he appeared wearing the offending item on his head. Turns out, it was a see-through eye-patch, made for him by "a friend" out of a bra. When the person you married for better or for worse takes to going out in the evening wearing half a bra on his face in front of hundreds of people, it's best to remain philosophical.

It all started with the Gibson a few years ago. That's a guitar, in case you don't know. Then there were the guitar lessons - a bit late, you might think, for a man whose rock band broke up about two decades ago. Ex-band member the Lizard began turning up at the house on Sunday afternoons.

These casual jam sessions were but one sign that my husband, aka Rocky De Valera, was experiencing mid-life ennui. The nine-to-five wasn't doing it for him. Life seemed no longer about living. His search for meaning kept leading him back to his youth, when he'd felt most alive: 1979 beckoned. The Gravediggers broke up that year, but after all this time, they had unfinished business.

For baby-boomers, living isn't about property, cars and material achievement, even if they've materially achieved. There's an idealistic streak in the generation that came of age in the 1960s and 1970s that makes them put personal fulfilment above just about anything.

It's too late now to tell me I should have seen it coming a couple of years ago, the day remarkably well-preserved ex-Gravediggers started turning up at the door. They seemed to be asking the same existential question: how can we get back on that stage and rock? And do we dare?

Over two years, they rehearsed in a cold hall, sidestepped gigs, rehearsed some more, wrote some songs, rehearsed again, recorded a single and rehearsed that. Something stopped them from following their dream of performing before an audience. I think they were worried about being laughed at.

Then original bass player Jack Dublin joined (a legend, in case you don't know), and suddenly the band was ready to gig.

Paul Byrne, the drummer (Gravedigger name: Pall Bearer), put it up to the others by organising a gig at the Summit Inn, Howth - a few doors down the street from where Ferdia spent his childhood. I won't say it was where he "grew up". Because he hasn't. "I've tried being a grown-up and it hasn't worked for me," he says.

So, a month ago, Ferdia's band - Rocky De Valera and the Gravediggers - began performing in public again. To packed houses. Baby-boomers who were fans of Rocky the first time round have helped create a reunion atmosphere, I'm told. Some have volunteered their own talents to help re-launch the band. Children in their 20s, reared on hip-hop R&B, are turning up at the gigs too, intrigued by the Gravediggers' brand of original rhythm and blues - roots music at least half-a-century old.

I haven't been to a performance yet. Not allowed. Ferdia thinks the children and I aren't ready to meet his alter ego, Rocky, just yet. I'm not arguing.

Anyway, somebody needs to stay at home to open the door to the taximan when he arrives to collect the eye-patch, or the stage clothes, or whatever else Rocky has forgotten in his dazed amble back onstage.

Let's put it this way, Sharon Osbourne has become my heroine. I think she and I should swap tips, if not bank accounts.

Before he died last month at the age of 88, "Ham" Bacon, inspiring civil rights campaigner and friend to me in my youth, advised: "I like to tell youngsters in their 40s and 50s not to be afraid if they haven't found their life's work. I still haven't."

Life isn't about work for baby-boomers. It's about risk, living in the moment and turning their backs on the graves that loom closer with every year. They make us all feel younger. But I'm feeling a little old to rescue any more suspicious packages from the dog.

Rocky De Valera and the Gravediggers play The Baily Court, Howth, Mar 18 and Eamon Doran's, Temple Bar, Dublin, Apr 8