I’d grown very fond of my tiny Turkish room-mate over the course of the conference in Toronto – so much so that I was in the habit of bending down to kiss the top of his head whenever I passed him. I had also secretly started to plan our life together on our return to the UK.

I was very slow at packing on our day of departure, hesitating over the division of my belongings between hold and hand luggage. At the point of official check-out time, hotel staff swarmed into our room to chase us out. Amongst them was a manager who remembered my former office mate SM from a conference stay almost a decade earlier. I didn’t know where to start when she asked after him.

Later I failed to photograph a starling murmuration. This was due to a camera fault.