Almost as soon as I did it, I knew that I should have never plonked a red hot Le Creuset casserole dish on the top of a highly polished antique mahogany sideboard. Sure enough, I’d instantly made a nasty circular scorch mark in the wood. To make matters worse, I couldn’t find a single French polisher listed in the tiny volume of the Yellow Pages (printed on white paper, bizarrely).

When my sister J joined us for lunch, she offered not an ounce of sympathy for the plight of the furniture. Instead, she thrust a still-warm homemade banana loaf into my hands, then made herself comfortable in the sitting room.

Later, I spoke on the phone to my (dead of seven years) father. He discussed at length various admin issues related to Holy Island. Then he apparently wandered off, leaving the phone line open, never to return.