The doorbell rings and I plod down the stairs. When I open the door my sister is standing there. She breezes past me. ‘Lee said you’d left a message saying you wanted to talk to me.’ Edie throws her bag down on the sofa. ‘I thought I’d break free from the sink and see if there was still a world outside my front door or whether it was all now a charred, black wasteland.’ Edie stops in her tracks. ‘Are you going out?’

‘No.’

‘Then why have you got a rucksack on your back?’

I’m also wearing shorts and a vest and sweating like a pig, but she hasn’t noticed this.

‘Why are you wearing shorts and a vest and sweating like a pig?’

I can’t help but giggle. ‘I’m training.’

‘I am too,’ she says. ‘To be an alcoholic. Get some booze out, sis. Anything. I don’t care what colour.’

‘Aren’t you going to ask me what I’m training for?’

Edie settles herself in the comfiest armchair. ‘What are you training for?’ she obliges.

I present myself in a theatrical manner. ‘I’m off to Nepal!’

My sister looks unimpressed. ‘Where’s that?’

I try another tack. Strike another theatrical pose. ‘I’m going trekking in the Himalayas!’

‘They’re hills, aren’t they?’

‘Got it in one!’

Edie shoots out of the armchair. ‘Are you insane?’

‘Possibly.’ If she saw that I had six tins of Heinz Big Soup in my rucksack and had been marching up and down the stairs for the last hour trying to turn my thighs into steel bars, she’d definitely think I was. I have also been singing ‘Eye of the Tiger’ in the style of the Rocky films, to myself, out loud. Are these generally considered the actions of a rational woman?

‘Where did this come from?’

‘Everyone’s been nagging me to get off the baby treadmill. Jake’s naffed off because of it. I’ve no commitments. There’s a bit of money left in the savings account that was going to be used for our next IVF attempt which I can now blow.’

My sister is looking wide-eyed and incredulous.

‘What?’ I say. ‘Why not?’

‘It’s a bit sudden.’

‘I thought you’d be pleased.’ If everyone reacts like this, then my faith in myself is going to take a bit of a wobble.

‘I am,’ she says, sinking back into her chair. ‘I think.’ Edie puffs out a long breath, clearly trying to make some sense of this. She rakes the mop that she calls hair. ‘The Himalayas…’ she breathes. ‘They’re so…hilly.’

‘Hills have a tendency to be,’ I point out. ‘I thought it would be a challenge.’

‘Good grief,’ she says, ‘it will be. Are you sure you’re fit enough for this?’