My mother is on the phone, alerting me to the travel arrangements which she and my mother-in-law have made on my behalf; I fly to England next week to visit both women, who live four hours apart in the West Country.

I am trying to establish the house phone’s whereabouts. 

MY SISTER is driving me to Stansted Airport. Right now she’s navigating a junction on the M11, so that we might merge with traffic on the A120 and she is getting sweary, London-driver style.

ANY STORY about a sister goes far, far back. Back to the time when you’re both just preliminary sketches of the people you’ll become,says Aida Austin.

ALL IS suspense and tension upstairs in bed; we are watching the final episode of The Last Tango in Halifax, series two, on Netflix. 

SIX-THIRTY pm and the girls are due to arrive home from college.

MY DAUGHTER is sitting in the conservatory looking over my mother’s shoulder. My mother, who has come to visit along with my sister, sits beside my daughter on the sofa, reading.

A FRIEND arrives in the kitchen, bearing a plate covered in tin foil. “Scones,” she says, “just out of the oven but they might need a bit more cooking.”

Having argued his case for road safety with great ease, economy of effort and conviction — like the lawyer that he is — and banned me from picking him up from Cork airport in my “mobile skip,” my brother-in-law arrives in a hire car.

HOME, 8pm, and we’re watching Masterchef. “Lucky judges,” I say, “never mind the pickled cauliflower — it would be worth having to taste them just for those shallots.”