“Why can’t we park in the airport like normal people?”

SUNDAY afternoon, Cork airport. My daughter and I are cutting quite a shape in the departures hall. A recent diagnosis of “bulging lumbar disc” means that I’m doing a syncopated, old-lady shuffle across the foyer, while behind me, my youngest daughter makes the slowest walk across the airport concourse in the collective history of walking and airport concourses.

My husband’s last instruction to my daughter as he dropped us outside the entrance before departing to park the car was, “be helpful. Mum is a cripple.”