"It won’t be dark, so I’ll be able to see the ditches"

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.

She informs me that my mother-in-law will collect me from Bristol airport and drive me back to her home in Somerset on Wednesday. Then on Thursday, Mum instructs me, I will travel with my mother-in-law down to Dartington Hall, a midway point between her house and my mother’s.

“Then I’ll drive you down to Cornwall,” my mother says, “but we’ll all have lunch first. Sheila’s coming too. They do a lovely lunch in Dartington, and lunch will break the driving up.”