When the order came through to work elsewhere, I signed up for a new life with my younger girlfriends and some of their contacts in a large house. This meant leaving my elderly mentor and her cliff-top home. I saved two polished pebbles as souvenirs of our life together.

The main living space in our new abode was the huge dining room. Here there was a spot for everyone at the enormous dining table to ‘work from home’ – although I did wonder how we would cope with simultaneous conference calls. At night-time we spread out for sleeping. I shared a narrow single bed with SL (formerly SC).

My only real complaint was the washing up. I seemed to be the one person bothered about the piles of dirty dishes in the kitchen area. It had all been left so long that the first challenge was to clear some space so that it was possible to tackle the mess.