But it wasn’t all deep and meaningful, serious talk. Jedda’s stories of backpacking around Australia and the guys she’d met in various jobs and hostels made me laugh so hard I got a stomach-ache.

I couldn’t help thinking how a situation like this could be good for Adrian and me. Confined inside with nothing to do but talk would surely give us the perfect opportunity to reconnect, the chance to discuss something other than house or kid stuff and remind ourselves what it was we’d loved about each other in the first place. I guessed this would be the goal when we saw Megan, but I couldn’t help worrying that such an artificial scenario would make us clam up rather than relax.

However, I couldn’t exactly summon a cyclone to fix my marriage, so couples counselling it would have to be.

A few hours later, the puzzle started to take shape, but my eyes were drooping and exhaustion was seeping into my bones when suddenly everything went still and quiet outside, as if the giant had got bored and left. After hour upon hour of unrelenting racket, it felt a little eerie.

Charlie twitched beneath the blanket and finally poked his head out from under it. I reached out to stroke him.

‘Is that it? Is it over?’ I asked, letting out a long slow breath, feeling as if I’d just run some kind of marathon.

Jedda shook her head. ‘No. This is the eye of the cyclone.’

‘The what?’

‘I’m no weather expert but it’s basically the calmest part. If it was daytime, the sky might clear up now and it would feel safe as the wind seems to have stopped, but it’s actually only the middle of the storm. It’d still be dangerous to go out now because it will start up again, but we may as well try and get some rest while it’s quiet.’

Despite having now been awake for twenty hours, I wasn’t sure I’d be able to sleep after all the excitement, but rest sounded like a good idea. Jedda curled around Bindi on the mattress and I snuggled under a couple of thick blankets on the couch with Charlie finally slumbering on the floor beside me.

Sometime in the early hours of the morning, I must have fallen asleep because I woke just after six to the sounds of wind howling again and rain lashing against the windows. Bindi was awake and playing with Charlie who appeared to have got used to the squalling soundtrack.

Jedda was boiling water on the camp stove. ‘Morning, sleeping beauty,’ she said.

I glanced out the window—not that I could see much as it was still quite dark. ‘So yesterday wasn’t a dream?’

Jedda chuckled. ‘Nope. But our friend on the ABC tells us the worst is over and things should settle again in the next few hours.’