Dots on the screen signalled he was writing back. I flopped down on the floor, resting my back against the bed. I was exhausted after the carby pizza and chilly walk, and wouldn’t last much longer before hitting the hay. I’d waited as long as I could to go to bed so that I could try and get back on UK time as soon as possible.

It feels strange that you’re not in the room across the hall from me anymore, he sent back. Or that we won’t share a bed tonight …

We’d made a decision before we landed that we needed to be in our own homes for the first night back so we could do all the logical stuff getting back from a trip involved – laundry, food shopping, trying to sleep – but no sooner had he pulled away in the cab than I’d started to pine for him. The house was too quiet, and I’d got used to the way a place felt with somebody else in it. Knowing Patrick was within the same four walls of the hotel suite as me had become a comfort. I’d loved knowing he was around, reading in the next room or showering as I FaceTimed home. I wished he was in the house with me, even if he was on the couch as I did my chores upstairs.

‘Falling for somebody on a three-week holiday is the real-life equivalent of months of dating if you measure it out in hours, surely,’ Adzo had commented during a brief phone call to get all my gossip. ‘Do the maths. Twenty-four hours a day for twenty-one days is …’ She quickly added it up. ‘One hundred and twenty-six four-hour dates. That’s a lot of dates. It’s practically a year of dates! You’ve spent more time with him than most couples rack up in their first months together.’

I can keep tradition and make coffee for two in the morning? I volleyed back to Patrick, smiling at the thought of making it one hundred and twenty-seven dates. Adzo was right: in terms of time spent together, we’d clocked up our time. No wonder I missed him.

I’ll be there, he replied. In fact, I can bring breakfast.

Perfect. Sleep tight.

You too, he said. Dream of me.

I didn’t need to dream, though. Real life was good enough.

Frustratingly, I lay staring at the ceiling with jet lag at 6 a.m. I’d slept like a log for seven hours, but suddenly was wide awake. I knew that after lunch I’d be desperate for a nap that would probably last all afternoon, but what can you do when your body clock is telling you it’s 2 p.m.? I decided to make a start on the piles of washing and go for a walk around the block, picking up some groceries on my way.