I was worried about the safety of the family’s holiday cottage. Although the front door to the building that we shared with the neighbours was secured with a Yale lock, the door to our porch and the second one from the porch into the hall, could not be locked properly. There was only a flimsy bolt across the inner door.

I was also concerned about food hygiene in the kitchen. Amongst the items in the packed fridge were dairy products over a year past their use-by dates! I raised this with my cousin R’s wife H. She was more interested in cooking a prawn curry to share with her daughter R after the next night’s parents’ evening than in my paranoia over food poisoning.

Then my cousin A walked in on us. She also completely ignored my concerns. Instead she announced the ‘great news’ that next year she was getting married on Dartmoor (rather than in Scotland), and that TPR and I would definitely not be invited to the wedding.