‘I’ve also got him a lead, dog food, bowls and some toys to hopefully stop him chewing the entire contents of my house.’

‘What about a bed?’

‘Yep.’

I had a feeling that the bed was the biggest waste of thirty pounds I’d ever spent, but you never knew – if I was keeping this dog then I needed to establish who was boss.

‘Oh, and I got these.’ I handed her a couple of books on owning a dog. ‘Essential reading if we’re going to get Nesbit properly trained up.’ I’d had more than a few pointed glances as we’d walked home, Nesbit continually darting into the road, tangling himself up in the lead and lunging at every living creature we passed, be it human, canine, a huge ginger tom cat or a tiny snail. I was clueless when it came to pets, and with Nesbit it was clear I’d taken on no easy challenge.

‘We should do puppy classes,’ Joan said, flicking through the book. ‘I’ll teach him how to fetch and roll over.’

‘Sounds great, but you might want to teach him to respect other people’s property first.’

As if on cue, he wriggled out of her grasp, leapt at her shoelaces and started tugging them with his tiny teeth.

‘This is the best thing that’s ever happened to me,’ Joan declared. ‘Even better than when we ran away, or meeting you at the library.’

‘Oh, so I’m second to a stray furball now, am I?’

Joan looked at me out of the corner of one eye. ‘Well, duh!’

I sat at my lovely garden table catching up on emails while Joan cavorted about in the sunshine, distracting Nesbit from the holes in the hedge, the niggles about Leanne, Mum and Irene Jenkins all safely tucked in my mental in-tray for another day. For a couple of hours, this felt pretty darn close to the life I’d been dreaming about for so long.

By the time I went back inside to throw together some home-made turkey burgers, there was another note pushed through my door:

Please ensure all dog mess is removed from the lawn and disposed of.

Any chunterings about the rude presumption that I might not clear up after my dog dissolved when I got up the next morning and found a chicken-wire fence had been installed around the entire border of the garden, thwarting any doggy escapes.

Steph and Drew were back from their holiday and came straight over to have a nosy at how I was getting on. They brought paint brushes and rollers, God bless them, and Nicky arrived proudly brandishing the new toolbox that his brothers had given him as a flat-warming present.

‘Got any jobs need doing, Ollie, then I’m your man!’ he announced, eagerly glancing around in case anything presented itself.

‘Well, now that you mention it…’