I was so well-practised at office moves that I soon organised the contents of my desk drawers, cabinet and bookshelves into neat piles: pens, notepads, paperclips, drawing pins, bath tub toys and Weebles (both commercially produced and ping pong ball versions lovingly home-made by the international students). The Disney posters were certainly not mine, so I saved them for VE to decorate her room at Dundee University. It was only after his brief visit that I realised that I could have offered EMc the yellow plastic ducks as a present for the new baby.

Later on I unpacked my belongings in my new bedroom at the huge Victorian house. It felt like coming home to the WH, especially since I was surrounded by members of my family rather than work colleagues. As I was retuning the ancient stereo to Radio 4 for the Friday night comedy at 6:30pm my sister J walked through the door with an armful of vintage clothing. I had a shelf-load of toiletries ready for the swap. However, taking into account the size of the 1980s dresses, our conversation immediately turned to how much weight you could put on in 30 years, and the planned exchange was abandoned.

Belle and I were discussing a moral dilemma. How could a charity focused on supporting those in debt justify building up its own funds by street collection?