‘Ah, I’m not finished yet. I came for your help. I’ve hooked the caravan onto my truck to get it across the fence and into position, but I could do with someone to guide me in.’

‘I didn’t expect you to do that,’ I say in surprise. ‘I could’ve done it.’

‘Because you’ve got a towbar on your pretty little car that’s never seen a mud splash in its life?’

Okay, fair point. I take another gulp of water to avoid answering.

I like how kind and helpful he is, even though it’s pretty clear he still disapproves of me. I didn’t expect him to do any of the things he’s done to help me today, and I know he’s got plenty of his own work he needs to be doing, but he hasn’t made a big deal out of it at all.

He’s much different than I thought he was.

***

There are a variety of crunching and grinding noises as Noel reverses the truck diagonally across my little back garden at the pace of geriatric snail, trying to slide the caravan onto the wide grass path at the side of his pumpkin patch. I’ve swept up the broken glass and kicked down the remains of the rotting fence, and now I’m trying to guide him incrementally left or right in an attempt to stop the caravan veering off, feeling a bit like a Chuckle Brother with all the ‘to me, to you-ing’. He seems to be doing a better job without my help.

Once the caravan is on his land, he straightens up easily and guides it neatly into perfectly parallel place. As he gets out of the truck and detaches it from his towbar, I climb inside, and discover it’s not as bad as I first thought. It needs a deep clean, and the upper cabinets that are dangling off need to be removed completely, but the units installed around the kitchen area are still sturdy. If I replace the broken window with a wooden shutter it can act as the rustic serving hatch I’d imagined and keep the squirrel out if colliding with my face didn’t give it enough of a fright to prevent it ever returning.

‘What’s it like?’ Noel pokes his head round the door and leans in.

‘It could be worse.’ I kick my foot through some of the debris on the floor, and then walk to the seating area at the other end. The cushions and soft furnishings have been chewed to bits by the previous bushy-tailed resident, but I get my hands under one and rip it off, and the wooden benches underneath are still undamaged.

The caravan dips under Noel’s weight as he climbs in too and treads through the rubble to poke around the kitchen area and prod at the window frame.