When she fell in love with this house in September – and I fell into line – maybe we secretly thought that conception would follow, because we’ve made a space for a baby. I’m still working on the BBC2 wellbeing show, and a decluttering expert I chatted to insisted that the things you really want only come when you make room for them.

Yet here we are, two collapsed housing chains and five months later, and the duckling wallpaper in the nursery the previous occupants chose makes me queasy. Instead of baby stuff, the room is full of the boxes we don’t yet have a home for.

Why isn’t this happening?

There’s a bottle of sparkling grape juice in the fridge and I get up to grab it. Liv went teetotal as part of an organic, raw regime designed to promote conception. But when the holistic stuff failed, we went down the medical route too. Our joint infertility is unexplained. The next step is IVF, not because there’s any scientific reason why lab technicians should succeed where we’ve failed, but because our consultant says it often works.

The cork pops gently, which is good because Leo has only just fallen asleep after spending hours getting his new room exactly how he wants it: installing the Darth Vader mood light, lining up his many pairs of trainers in the right order.

‘Cheers. Here’s to us,’ I say, filling her glass and mine.

‘Here’s to me and you, at number twenty-two.’

After we’ve toasted, she picks up the local events calendar the previous family left for us. Month by month, it details the community activities our new neighbourhood is famous for. With a big red pen, she begins to circle the things we’re going to go to: street parties and park barbies and the annual Paddle Round the Pier in July. Might she be expecting by then?

We’ve talked about the other ways we’re going to make room for a final member of our family. Work–life balance is going to be our motto, though that doesn’t quite match the mortgage we’ve had to take out on this place – or the fact Liv has accepted a series director contract for a second season of the fire-service documentary she won a BAFTA for.

She hands me the calendar and I realize we’re never going to have a free weekend ever again.

‘This is where things are going to happen for us, Joel. You wait and see. This is the beginning of the rest of our lives.’

I hope the Fates are listening, because my Liv is not a woman to be ignored. I kiss her and she responds passionately, and we make mad, teenager-style love on the Farrow & Ball painted floorboards.

Let’s start as we mean to go on . . .

The pain comes from nowhere.