TPR and I thought that we had bought just one house in the country. Then the estate agent pointed out that the dormer bungalow along the lane was also ours. This would be a great bonus for our guests. If it suited them, they could have the complete privacy whenever they came to stay with us.

RH was our next visitor. After some debate over the location of white cotton bed linen, TPR and I wandered along the road to check whether the bungalow was in a fit state to receive guests.

It was not. The previous owners had not fully cleared the house before the sale. Instead they had left behind hundreds of ugly ornaments on every available surface. With the exception of an angular glug jug, these knick-knacks were not to our tastes at all. But now we faced a dilemma: to take everything to a charity shop, or start selling to collectors on eBay?

The next problem was the upper floor of the bungalow. Of the three internal staircases that appeared to lead there, only one actually did.

There was also an external set of steps and this was teeming with people. Above us we found that the entire top level of the bungalow was used by the locals as a community centre. They were horrified to learn that we – as the new owners of the property – might close down the facility.

It seemed to us that RH would be staying with us in the main house after all.