Dressed only in a navy blue towel, I wandered around chilly Oxford cursing the snow – and TPR, now onto the xth affair of our marriage.

The new undergraduates looked both puzzled and proud at their achievement of winning places at one of the world’s top universities. As well as his daughter, one delighted father dropped off a pair of lion cubs for the start of the new academic year.

I hoped that I would be able to find my cousin B and her small son, my sister J, and both my parents at my grandmother’s house in the town, as well as Granny T herself.