Sunny with a chance of rain, said the Cruise Letter. Turned out it was pissing down in La Spezia, with ‘a chance of brightening up later’ said the weather channel so they had that ass-backwards. Nothing on that sodding Cruise Letter was true. It also said the on-board entertainment was ‘among the best in the world’. That’s if the best includes acrobats who can’t balance, comedians who aren’t funny and singers who couldn’t hit a note with a shovel.

In my opinion, obvs.

When I got up to the Diamond Deck breakfast room to show Caro the latest message from Beatrice – a picture Enzo had scanned in showing both women younger and in bikinis on rocks as the waves sprayed up behind them – she was nowhere to be found. She wasn’t in her stateroom either.

‘She left early for the wine excursion,’ her room steward informed me as he sorted through towels on his trolley.

‘Caro doesn’t do excursions,’ I frowned.

‘That’s where she said she was going.’

If I didn’t know better, I’d have said Caro was avoiding me. I hadn’t been able to find her the night before either. So much for seeing me through my pain and helping me out. She’d ticked that particular box now, had she?

Nevertheless, I was booked on the Florence Museums tour with the Prossers and I had a job to do. I had to go into Super Turbo Hilary mode with extra sprinkles to help them over their miscarriage. I didn’t disappoint.

I bought Ty a colouring book for the two-hour coach ride into Florence and regaled Ryan and Jayde throughout with jokes, anecdotes and tales of Bruce’s suspected food poisoning which meant he was still laid up in bed with the shits. Ty loved all the fart noises. And despite the air-conditioning on the coach being as effective as being breathed on by a small dog for two hours, generally I was a jokey, sparkly delight to be around.

I owned that coach journey. I was Hilary Sharp, commander of them all, general defender of children and animals, mother to an abandoned child, wife to a non-existent husband, Australian when she remembered.

And I would have my gelato, in this life or the next.

Jayde seemed OK, as far as I knew. Well, she didn’t cry. But I’m about as good at gauging emotions as I am at windsurfing, so who knew? As for myself, I was much more serene now – in a genuine, bouncily happy Hilary-esque mood now I knew Ivy was well. An emotional roadblock had been cleared and I could see a road beyond it again.

The moment the coach stopped in Florence, Hilary was sucked right up the drainpipe and Rhiannon emerged, like Pennywise’s balloon.