Unwrapping waxy paper, I dished out McDonald’s breakfast to the ravenous teenagers in front of me. My daughter Erin, now 19, had her friends Dani, 19, and Evie, 16, stay over for a sleepover.
Along with my other daughter Kiki, 13, and partner Kev, 54, I had quite a hoard of hungry people gathered round the table.
Sliding into a chair, we chatted about our morning plans.
On 30 October last year, it was a Sunday, and typically I would snuggle up on the sofa, but that day we had bigger fish to fry.
Our chimney had been billowing smelly, black smoke right into our living room whenever we lit our fire.
And the weekend before, Kev had attempted to use a long rod to unblock it.
Only, it got stuck.
‘It might be structural,’ Kev told
