Now I try to banish the memories of the sessions I’d endured, as a drop of rain splats on my head. Soon I need to dive under cover of the nearest shop before I’m drenched. I must have left my umbrella at work, I realise, as I meander towards the wine shelves of a convenience store, choosing a seven-pound bottle of Sauvignon Blanc while waiting for the worst of the rain to pass.

Back at my flat I pour a glass and sit by the window in the kitchen watching the rain that is now steadily drumming against the pane. Despite having little to do this weekend and regardless of the fact I don’t work a usual five-day week, I still get that Friday feeling and have fallen into a comfortable routine: once I have finished this glass I’ll make a curry, then have another drink with Marco in his flat above mine while ignoring his pleas to join him clubbing.

As it is, I don’t get back to my own flat until just before ten, but I’m not ready to go to bed just yet. Instead I snuggle down on the sofa with a blanket, flick on the TV, then grab a magazine from the coffee table and idly thumb through it.

The news comes on and I glance up. A reporter is standing outside a house, holding a large umbrella while the wind whips her ponytail from side to side. My eyes drift to the ticker tape along the bottom of the TV screen and then back again to her. I don’t recognise any of the details behind her at first and am about to turn back to the magazine when something catches my eye.

They’ve caught it at a funny angle, but there’s a distinctive window in the top corner of the picture, circular with obscured glass. I inch forward on the sofa and grab the remote again, turning up the volume so I can hear what the reporter is saying over the hammering that’s beginning to beat in my ears.

It’s funny I didn’t recognise it immediately when every detail is etched on the inside of my eyelids. When all I need to do is call up my memory and I can paint a picture of a thousand pixels in intricate detail. But then it doesn’t look the same. Not entirely.

The windowsills have been painted a deep teal and now the camera is panning out so I can see more of the house. There are colonial-style white fascia boards and a conservatory at the front. It doesn’t look like my home any longer. Yet unmistakably it is. The white picket fence that runs along the left-hand side is still there. Dad had put that up one summer to separate our garden from the path that runs alongside it. On the right, tall pines still drape the length of the garden.