The response was an immediate and combined cacophony of dog-barking, manic childish laughter and an indistinct, but stern, female voice. A couple of seconds later the door was pulled ajar by a petite woman with shoulder-length, red-brown hair, whom I guessed to be in her mid-thirties. She wobbled as she crouched down and repeatedly flapped an arm behind her in an apparent attempt to deter something – I assumed either a dog or a child – from escaping into the street.

‘You Edith?’ she gasped.

‘Edie, yes. Are you Kerry? Giles told—’ I got no further as her arm shot out and she pulled me hastily inside the partially open door, before slamming it shut and leaning against it to catch her breath.

‘So sorry about that, Edie,’ she said in a strong Bristolian accent, her hair falling across her face as she leant forward, hands on thighs, and took several deep breaths. ‘Just didn’t want either of these two little—’ She stopped short and straightened up. ‘Just didn’t want Harry and his friend, Ollie, running into the road with Anthony.’

She nodded over my shoulder and I turned to see two small boys, one blonde and slight, the other dark and decidedly chunky. Both were liberally spattered with mud and next to them, bouncing around their knees, panting and tail wagging violently, was Anthony. He also was muddied and very, very wet.

‘Mine’s the dark-haired one,’ said Kerry, through a clenched smile. ‘They’ve been watering the garden. And watering Anthony too, haven’t you, boys?’

‘We used a green hose with a yellow end. You twist the end and the water sprays,’ grinned the blonde, for whom detail was clearly important. Harry nodded along, whilst eyeing Kerry warily.

She looked at him, her eyes narrowing, and a tense silence descended, before her frame suddenly relaxed and she sighed wearily. ‘It’s fine. It’s only a bit of mud,’ she said, as if to herself, before adding more loudly, ‘But neither of you can go out looking like that, can you? So, Harry, take Ollie upstairs and find him some clean clothes from your floor. He can wear a pair of your joggers. Go on. Hurry up or all the dinosaurs will be dead.’

‘They’re already dead,’ said Ollie. ‘A meteorite may have killed them. Or volcanoes. Or climate change.’

‘You’re so clever, Ollie,’ smiled Kerry, before turning to me and adding in a quiet mutter, ‘His mother force-feeds him kale and David Attenborough.’

I took a step back as the two boys swept past me, whooping at nothing in particular and jostling for the lead as they galloped up the stairs on all fours.

‘Not you, Anthony,’ said Kerry, swooping down and grabbing the wiry grey-haired little dog by his collar as he made to follow them. ‘We need to towel you down.’