We gaze at the two chickens my sister has discarded outside. On top of each chicken is a white cat. The cats stare back at us, with chicken-blood grimaces.

7pm, Sligo, my eldest brother’s house. My husband and I have just arrived for a family visit.

My youngest brother, who flew here from Geneva earlier, got first dibs on staying in my eldest brother’s house.

So he is staying here in a luxuriously well-appointed building and we, the late arrivals, are staying with my youngest sister in The Visitors’ Shed.