Excerpt: Everything is lined up and ready in the hallway: a pile of suitcases and holdalls stuffed full of summer clothes, hats, sandals, towels and toiletries, a plastic football, a cricket bat, stumps and bails, tennis balls, badminton racquets and a couple of shuttlecocks, Julie's hula hoop, a pile of library books and assorted comics and magazines. And then there is the food: wooden crates and plastic carrier bags filled with bottles...