Last year, for the first time ever, I spent Christmas with my whole family: sons, daughters-in-law, five adult grandchildren – and my ex-husband. But the 11 of us weren’t crushed round a too-small dining table, as in an Alan Ayckbourn comedy. Nor would the grandparents – us – have to sleep on a sofa bed or a camp bed put up in the living room. Instead, after working out the logistics of the adventure with military precision, my ex and I booked ourselves three nights in a comfortable London hotel, with separate rooms of course.
On Christmas Eve, we caught the
