The old town looks lovely, but it’s a nightmare for the poor working woman trying to go about her business, getting stuck behind coaches in streets that were never intended for anything wider than a horse and cart, or trying to avoid knocking over knots of trippers, who stand about like waiting skittles in the middle of the road as they gawp at the delights around them. By the time I turned off North Street, my temper was not so much frayed as shredded. After walking the Tribe, I’d done two hours’ house-cleaning for the odious Verbena Clarke, it was way past my lunchtime and I was starving hungry. You wouldn’t like me when I’m hungry.

The lane in which I live is quieter than the main thoroughfare and a lot less picturesque. No Georgian houses in sugar-almond colours here, no thatches and hollyhocks, just a narrow cobbled street with what used to be a bookshop, now sadly boarded up, halfway down. The only other building of interest is Sunflowers, the vegetarian cafe owned by my landlords, Adam and Kate, set in what was once an old stable.

Beyond this, the pavement narrows to nothing, the cobbles peter out and the road degrades into a rough track pocked with potholes and gives up entirely in a dead-end patch of ground edged with a tangle of dusty bramble bushes and dominated by an old Victorian lamp post. Some people regard this as an excellent place to abandon shopping trolleys, tip old mattresses, dispose of defunct microwaves and the like. I use it to park the van. Not that anyone is likely to be mad enough to want to steal it, but parked there I can see it from the house, if I peer out of the window on the landing.

Adam and Kate inherited a cavernous Victorian property, which they have never had enough money to renovate. It’s gloomy and damp, with creaking floorboards and rotten window frames, but there’s little rental accommodation in Ashburton, the rent is cheap, and beggars can’t be choosers. They’re happy to have a tenant living above them who doesn’t complain about the mouldy wall in her kitchen, the windows rattling, or the draught screaming like a banshee under the living-room door. To be fair, they’ve made several attempts to improve the place, but always run out of funds before these improvements can be completed. Sunflowers is not in a prime trading position and doesn’t do as well as its excellent menu deserves.

When I got back that morning my landlords were still at the cafe, dealing with lunches, and the house was empty. I trotted up the steps from the garden gate, making a mental note that it was time I gave the shrubs in the front garden a good haircut.

I was on a promise to look after them that I hadn’t honoured for some time.