‘Exactly.’ I can picture her face and it makes my heart feel warm. Listening to her is almost as good as having one of her hugs. I must get down there soon.

‘So anyway Fiona, the accommodation supervisor, was fine with it, and then there was a big fuss because that old trout next door complained.’

I giggle.

‘So what’s happening in the Big Smoke? Any exciting news?’

‘Well,’ I say, wriggling backwards on the bed and curling my feet underneath me, ‘I told you last time that I finally met Rob. He’s been giving us lessons in baking sourdough bread.’

‘That’s the chef one, am I right?’

‘Yes.’ I nod, even though she can’t see me. ‘We’ve got to feed this starter thing – it’s basically like flour and water mixed into a paste – and then leave the bread dough to prove overnight. Only nobody fed the starter and the bread turned out more like a brick than anything else.’

‘I’ll give you my recipe,’ Nanna says, comfortingly. ‘It’s none of that new-fangled sourdough stuff, just a good old-fashioned loaf.’

I think of Rob telling us how sourdough was the most ancient method of baking in his gruff Scottish accent, and decide I’ll just leave that bit out. My foray into baking has given me a whole new level of respect for the people that run Le Pain Quotidien. Imagine making all those loaves every day? The responsibility must be terrifying.

‘And what’s happening with your mum?’

‘Mum?’ I realise with a start that I haven’t heard from her in ages. I’ve always been a bit out of sight, out of mind, for Mum, particularly when she’s busy. I think maybe it’s rubbed off on me a bit. I really ought to call her.

‘Haven’t seen her for about a week,’ Nanna Beth tells me. ‘She was telling me all about this job she’s found selling something online. She’s caught up with some project or other. You know what she’s like.’

I sigh. I do. She’s forever finding money-making schemes that are going to solve all our problems – or just hers, nowadays. The trouble is that every one of them so far has involved her ploughing a load of money in ‘as an investment’ and none of it ever seems to come back.

‘Remember the lifestyle coaching or whatever it was?’ Nanna chuckles.

‘And the meditation teacher training?’ I laugh, thinking about how many times my mother’s been utterly convinced about something that was going to make her fortune. Six months sitting in a dusty church hall three nights a week soon put an end to that one, and she was on to the next thing. I bite my thumbnail.

‘Oh, I forgot,’ says Nanna Beth. ‘She said she was going for a cabaret job on one of the cruise ships when I spoke to her last.’

‘Did she?’ I say, sitting up sharply. How the hell is she going to look out for Nanna if she’s halfway round the world on the Disney Princess or whatever it is?