My parents told me to empty my farmhouse for their forty anniversary guests. I said my daughter was eleven days out of a bone-marrow transplant. Mum said: “Lock her upstairs.” I agreed — and on Saturday the sheriff was waiting at my gate.

were the decorations, the boxes of glassware, the four cases of champagne, and every item of clothing they had left in my guest rooms over the years — which turned out to be more than either of them would have guessed.

I packed all of it properly. I labelled the boxes. I took photographs of each one.

And I put the lot into a rented storage unit in my father’s name, with the first month paid, and posted him the key on the Friday afternoon so it would arrive Monday.

Then I changed the gate code.

I had a locksmith out on the Friday morning to do the outside locks, which took him two hours and cost me four hundred dollars, and I signed a no-trespassing notice and put it in a plastic sleeve on the post by the entrance.

That farmhouse is mine.

Not the family’s. Not my parents’ weekend