Several years ago, I was living next-door to some very good and mildly eccentric people. They very kindly allowed me to take a short-cut through their garden when I was taking my daughter to and from school.

One morning, on our way through the garden, we passed a tent that had been put up. We walked past quietly, not knowing if anyone was in there or not. When I came back from the school, I was again tiptoeing along, when I was startled by the man of the house emerging through the tent flaps. He’d obviously just woken up, and looked at me blearily.

I said the first thing that came into my head, which was “why are you sleeping in a tent?” I expected him to say something like he was just testing it before they went on holiday, or he thought he’d try sleeping in the garden for a change. Instead he said “I thought it might rain.”

I often remember that incident, and it always makes me smile, because he obviously didn’t think there was anything at all unusual about it – and that was one of the reasons why I liked him so much.