It feels sort of protective that he was listening out for me in the night. ‘I’m not used to sleeping alone,’ I say and then add hastily, ‘or in a tent. This is the first time I’ve camped.’ There’s no way I’m going to recount the one failed backyard expedition I had with my spiteful sister. At the thought of Edie, I get a pang for home. I wonder if my mother is surviving without me or whether she and her younger daughter have slaughtered each other yet.

‘It gets easier,’ Dean assures me before I can conjure up the image of a bloodbath in my mum’s lounge. ‘After a few days you’ll get into the flow and wonder why you ever lived in a house.’

Before I can dispute that, Sanjeev arrives with a tray of hot, creamy rice pudding, studded with coconut and nuts and raisins. The rest of the group straggle out to join us and it’s clear that the first night in a tent hasn’t been particularly restful for the others either. I devour the rice pudding—and to think I used to fight eating this at school. I had hoped that I was going to return from this holiday as slender as a reed with supermodel-thin thighs. At this rate I’m going to be as fat as a house and struggling to fit in my one-man tent by the end of the first week. I console myself with the fact that my appetite will find its level after a few days and I won’t be so desperate to consume everything put in front of me. It’s a long time since I’ve been so enthusiastic about food. When we’ve finished the rice pudding, pancakes and scrambled eggs magically appear. My appetite goes into overdrive. Some hope!

The porters are already breaking camp and making up the day’s loads. The bags are packed, the tents are being folded. The breakfast pans have been washed and stowed in wicker baskets ready for transportation to the next open-air kitchen. I would love it if some of these people came home with me and got me ready for work every morning. My legs are aching, but pleasantly so. The sun is up, peeping over the hills and chasing the cold away. We finish our breakfasts as the first string of porters skitter away, taking the footpath at a full run. Just watching them makes me feel exhausted—not to mention deeply inadequate.