Two sticky hands curl round mine and I’m led into the main street—the only street. There’s no road at all here, not even a dusty track, just a sweeping curve of grass opening out to a field that falls away over the side of the mountain. The houses are smarter than the ones in the other villages we’ve passed through, the mud-brick outsides painted in vibrant shades of blue and orange topped with tidy, thatched roofs. The gardens are well tended and filled with large ripe produce—cabbage, sweet potatoes, peppers, aubergines, chillis and the more exotic and unexpected, bananas, squash, lemons and tangerines. Out on the porches the women are sprucing up their homes, swishing away the dust with brooms made of twigs while others sit in groups singing and kneading dough to make chapattis.

‘They’ll have been cooking for days,’ Dean tells me. ‘Everyone is getting ready to celebrate Tihar—the Festival of the Brothers—this afternoon. Nepal has a hundred and ten festivals and holidays every year—all a great excuse to eat too much and drink too much and take time off work.’

‘A bit like Christmas then.’

‘A lot like Christmas, but a hundred and nine times more often.’

‘That doesn’t bear thinking about.’ Once a year is far too often for me. I’m sure I’d love Christmas if it only came round every five years.

‘It’s great. Everyone gets very overexcited.’ Dean flashes me a reassuring look. ‘It’ll be a lot of fun. You’ll love it.’

The women giggle bashfully and wish us ‘namaste’ as we pass.

We wander farther down the street until we reach a tiny thatched house. It looks as if there’s one room downstairs and one upstairs. It’s well tended and there’s a blackened, brick-built range on the front porch. Next to the house stands a tall wooden rack containing ears of corn drying in the sunshine. There’s a black baby goat curled up asleep and half a dozen plump chickens strut and peck around it.

‘Well,’ Dean says with a smile. ‘This is it. Welcome to my life.’