“You all remember Mark Radcliffe don’t you?” We followed SM’s gaze up the garden path. As the good-looking young man and his smart parents came through the gate, the rest of TPR’s family stood up from their deck-chairs ready to greet this latest set of garden party guests. TPR and I exchanged glances. Was this Mark Radcliffe another of my sister-in-law’s ex-boyfriends? We had been tempted south to Birdham in West Sussex with the promise of a family-only party, but this definition of “family” to include former partners and their parents stretched the term to its limits. We slipped back into the house unnoticed through the French windows of the music room.

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Indoors TPR’s presence was replaced by DT (now my boss) and another female companion. Our passage beyond the music room was blocked by CB, who chose this moment to openly criticise my poor performance at the last board meeting. She first made public her letter of complaint to “Mr Wood”, the chair of the board of directors. My deficiencies lay in poor organisation and a woeful lack of familiarity with finances. I argued back that there is only so much that can be done in 14 hours a week. What I should have done was declare the irrelevance of her diatribe: the event to which she referred was not a board meeting and the chair was called Dr J, not “Mr Wood”. Of course, I only realised this after we left the music room to climb the metal spiral staircase to the top of our land-based submarine. I mentioned to DT that I hoped the incident with CB would not reflect badly at my next professional development meeting.

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Soon it would be EB’s 60th birthday and she had gone to much effort in publicising the celebrations. The DVD invitation was especially well presented. EB looked nowhere near 60 in the foreground of the sunny scene, dressed in a fawn one-piece swimsuit and pashmina, with her long dark hair flowing in the wind. Behind her sail boats bobbed in a sparkling blue sea. EB explained the plan: we were all invited to join her for a massive party in the US. TPR and I were almost tempted until we spotted the Disney characters climb out of one of the boats. This would be a holiday more suited to VE than to us.