1. Carla hasn’t been up to the bedroom much recently – she’s spent the last fortnight glued to the sofa – but today she comes to find me. She sits on my chest and purrs a loud rumble until it’s time for me to get up.

2. “Hi handsome,” I say as I stick my head around the door. Boron looks up and blinks slowly at me: “hello to you too”. We don’t think he has much time left – his body betrays his ancient age but his eyes are still as bright and shiny as they’ve ever been.

3. We don’t use the spare (attic) room as much as we should and every time I go up there, it’s like those dreams where you find a new room in your house and think “of course this room is here, how have I missed it all these years?”*. The view from the side window always surprises me too – a familiar view from a new perspective.

* Although to be frank, every day in this house is like that. To date, we’ve found two new rooms, a cupboard, and two doorways (including one through to next door) behind walls, and that’s not counting the window in the wardrobe we knew about before we moved in.