When I saw the car in the yard I let out a groan. It was Geraldine. Normally I’m the one reminding my sister about something she’s done, but I knew now this time it was different.

“Well Ann, how’s the head?” says Geraldine, before she was hardly in the door. She had a sort of a smile on her face like I was in trouble and she wasn’t. Which was a rarity. Like the time our mam caught Himself sneaking around all those years ago.

“Not a bother on me,” I said. I was lying. To be quite honest with you, I had a hangover. And I don’t normally get those. I’m not one for big drinking but I had one now. It was on account of the Nathan Carter concert. I think it was the tension. I don’t know when I’d looked forward to a night out more. After getting that text about Jennifer getting engaged, I was in an awful state.

“A daughter that gets engaged to an eejit is like a death in the family,” Himself had said when he heard the news, being dramatic of course.

Deirdre came over early and she brought Geraldine.

“It’s a girls’ night out so you’ll have a few prinks, Mam,” says Deirdre taking out the wine. And I think that’s where the trouble started. Prinking is a new thing apparently.

“I will not.”

“Do, Mam, there’ll be fierce queues at the bar and you know what them concert prices are like. Don’t you hate wasting money and time?”

She knew how to press my buttons alright, repeating my own rules back to me. So I had a couple of glasses of wine. It was grand, actually.

“That’s Lidl now,” says Deirdre. “They’ve points for their fine wines. That’s an 87.”

By the time we were ready to go to the concert it might as well have been a 17 for all I cared. I was a bit well on.

And this is where Geraldine took up the story today.

“Do you remember much of it, Ann?”

“I remember being at the concert and I was dancing I think but I don’t know … What, Geraldine?!”

She was laughing at me now and out comes the phone.

“Here’s the rest of the story, Ann – that’s you dancing out the front with Gary Bennett, and that’s you on his back wearing a cowboy hat and shouting at him to giddy up. And this is you with Nathan after. You nearly went through his bodyguard to get to him.”

“Did I talk to Nathan?”

“Wait for it.”

She showed me a photo and poor Nathan seemed to be holding me up. I put my hands to my face but Geraldine wasn’t finished.

“You told Nathan he smelled lovely. And then you said you had a daughter that was after getting engaged to an eejit and would Nathan talk her out of it, that he was ‘more her style. Only she didn’t know it yet.’ And you rang Jennifer and forced him to talk to her.”

“Oh Got, What did he say to her?”

“You said: ‘Jennifer I’ve someone here to talk to you,’ and she could tell you were balubas but anyway Nathan just says your mammy is a big music fan and mighty craic.”

Oh thank god.

“Ah he’s a pro. He’d be used to it. Shur you weren’t the worst of them. This wan from Galway was there as well and she was stalking him, wanting to know why he hadn’t Snapchatted her back. And she was throwing you dirty looks.”

“I’m mortified.”

“Listen to me, Ann, there’s no need for mortification. You’ve done enough of that. You’ve always been sensible. No harm to cut loose. I have to say I was so proud of you.”

And then she gives me a big hug. The first in years. I was a bit rocked by that. Like a wagon wheel.