All the ingredients were laid out in the kitchen so I made a start on breakfast: one slice of bacon and a fried egg for me in one pan; three fried eggs for TPR in another. While all this was cooking I mixed up pepper slices (orange), raw green beans, chopped tomatoes, with five or six varieties of cheese (including feta and Stilton). When TPR emerged from the bedroom he was appalled to discover the bacon and eggs burnt to a crisp, and announced that he did not find my “salad” appetising.

Breakfast abandoned, we set off for Edinburgh Zoo. We had to pay extra to get through the gates at dawn, but it was worth it for the view of the three suns rising over the North Sea to the east. Our photographs would be good, even though we had forgotten to bring our DSLR camera.

Then it started to pour with rain. Neither of us had packed a coat for our day out. We were idiots.