She is enormous and does a good Queenie - or Judie Dench? - act. We spend frozen early evenings pacing the suburbs together in an effort to get her to sleep.

I'm driving almost daily to Oxford for motorbike lessons, trying to see friends, and wondering what to do with my life - and why there is no let up.

It's a strangely lonely moment: no home, no base, no plan, no jobs, still one foot in Congo and wondering always what's happening there. Definite ups and downs and in constant need of feeling loved, and if not loved, than welcome.