My immediate thought on waking in my office was whether or not I had any clothes to change into from my red fleece pyjamas. What I thought was a pair of black and white spotted knickers on a bookshelf turned out to be an old pair of navy blue leggings. Once I had managed to squeeze into them, it felt ‘safe’ to go out into the corridor to find out what my colleagues were up to.

All was as one might expect: RK was wandering up and down chatting to his buddies; ED had taken roost in BB’s room where she was marking up the draft of a PhD thesis; and a younger, smaller OP popped into a colleague’s room for a tutorial.

The only surprise was to find a primary school teacher sitting at a desk in the PhD students’ room. Since when had she been working in my group? As I approached her she announced that she had something to tell me in private. This was true. She had some explaining to do.