Since I couldn’t visit the property to check in person, I reckoned that the best way to audit my mother’s belongings for the house contents insurance renewal was to dream myself there. TPR agreed to ‘come’ with me, and we combined the trip with a meet-up with our university friends SPL and HJ, and SC.

It was much easier than envisaged to reach the house in our reveries, and soon I was wandering through the rooms, pen in hand, noting down the details of each item of furniture and artwork. I found familiar pieces such as a rocking chair that I once thought was enormous, and new (to me) objects such as a child’s high chair. Other surprises included a fridge full of yoghourt, a fox playing on the lawn (seen through the siting room window and which drove our own collie mad), and an encounter with S as she left quietly to take G to school.

We didn’t see anything of SEH because she was asleep in bed upstairs. SPL also went missing in action, preferring to spend her time inside our dreams with climate activists from the Isle of Man.