I set off to collect my cousin FA from the exam hall. I should have known that he would have left his desk long before the end of the allocated time to complete the paper. It took a while to work out where to find him and take him to my grandmother’s house in Corbridge.

On arrival, we headed directly upstairs. In her own bedroom, my grandmother was hosting a meeting with her three children: my mother, my aunt, and my uncle. Across the landing, my sister JMH was hosting a lunch party in one of the other bedrooms.

FA and I joined the lunch party. This turned out to be a terrible disappointment because (a) there was hardly enough bread to go around and (b) apart from the recently restored dining table, all the furniture in the room was extremely tatty.