We are out exploring – get lost as usual – and I get talking to a real estate agent. Next thing I know we are putting on offer in on a house. John hasn’t even started his training and I’m unemployed but we regard these as minor drawbacks! Don’t feel so calm after going to the bank and setting up a mortgage, but in for a penny in for a pound….

Our things have been delivered. It’s like Christmas. I start on the first box at 9am and the tears start at 9.01. I cry my way through the first 25 boxes, then realise I have another 50 to go so I pull myself together. It’s funny – the things that seemed so important six months ago don’t seem so now. My favourite towels from Next, for instance, look old and faded, not at all how I remembered them. Still, having my stuff makes me feel at home. I even cherish the smell of home on all our old stuff. Now our house can be a mixture of old and new, a kind of map of our adventures from around the world. I’m really starting to feel as if I belong here.