I could get used to this.

Two weeks ago, we were at the point of wondering if we could afford toilet roll or whether we should put the appallingly low-quality junk mail to re-use. We had €3.15 to last until September, with bills to be left unpaid, a mortgage to put us overdrawn – all that not-so-fun stuff.

Then my older brother arrived and, very generously, stocked us up on beers, juice, wine and sundries. Then I opened a letter with belated money back from the solicitor, as you know. Yesterday, I opened another letter with a tax rebate from my paltry income last year: €1,000 euros.

‘Yes,’ said the fairly godless mutha, ‘you shall have the sand for your second-stage sewerage treatment before winter.’

I feels very much like we’ve hit financial bottom and bounced back up again. Again.

(One day, if you’re very good, I might even tell you the story about how the criminal banking practices of NatWest at the end of the last recession nearly killed me; a tale which, although disgraceful, criminal and almost unforgivable, put me firmly on the anti-capitalist, anti-materialist path that will have me and my family living happily ever after.)