Having dealt with the cat, I turn my attention back to dinner and start rummaging through the vegetable drawer in the fridge to see what I can use to bulk out my cottage pie for one. Samson watches me hopefully for a minute or two, clearly wondering if he can con another treat out of me, before giving it up as a bad job and stalking off in the direction of the sitting room with his fluffy ginger tail held high. I know I joke about him meeting my emotional needs, but he’s just affectionate enough without being needy, which is perfect for me. Sam and I got him as a kitten from a rescue centre when we first moved into our ground-floor flat in Margate. We ran through hundreds of possible names for him before settling on Samson – the joke being that he’s Sam’s son. Despite him being named after her, we both absolutely dote on him and he takes full advantage whenever he can. We did have a conversation a year or so ago about who would keep him if one of us moved out but, thankfully, it wasn’t prickly. Sam had been typically generous.

‘The only thing that would make me move out, Ruby, would be if I was madly in love with someone and we were going to live together,’ she’d said. ‘If that happens, you’ll miss me so terribly that you’ll need another redhead in your life to cheer you up. Samson fits the bill perfectly.’

I’d laughed at the time, but she had hit a nerve. I know we won’t be flatmates forever, but she’s my best friend and I would miss her horribly if she moved out. We’ve known each other since primary school, where she was bullied horrendously by a couple of the boys in our class for having ginger hair. I found her crying in the girls’ toilets one day after a particularly vicious attack, and the injustice of it just tipped me over the edge. I was into Judo at the time, so I used a few moves on the boys, and it worked. The fact that they’d been humiliated by a girl was too much for them, so they steered well clear of both of us after that, and Sam’s and my friendship hasn’t wavered since.