The party cost over £4,000 – at least that’s what I guessed from a snatched conversation with JK who was working as a waitress at the event. The cost didn’t bother us, however. It would be funded from the bottomless pit of resource that was the bank account of our super-wealthy parents. So long as my sister J enjoyed the celebration that she deserved, that was the main thing.

I still wished that my family were better organised. PMF and TPR were engaged in a territorial dispute over the study. This now housed (among other things) two rowing machines and stacks and stacks of video games. Meanwhile the rest of the house was littered with bulging suitcases stuffed with old clothes that nobody had had sight of since the 1980s. Finding space to party in this mess was always going to be tricky.