She was sixteen. Nobody had promised us sixteen. The vet at the practice on Ridgeway had said, in the first year after we moved, that we might get two more good ones out of her, and we got four, and I have never once been ungrateful about that.

But in February she went down the back step to the yard and could not come up it, and stood at the bottom in the wet grass looking at the door, and Colin carried her in.

After that we built the ramp. Colin did it over a weekend out of ply and outdoor carpet and it was ugly and it worked for about six weeks, and then it stopped working because the problem was not the step.

I want to put down what the last six months actually involved, because people talk about old dogs in a soft-focus way and it is mostly logistics.

Rugs. We ran carpet runners the whole length of the hall and across the kitchen, because tile was a problem and laminate was a problem, and our house looked like a badly organised church hall.

A sling — a wide strap that goes under the hips, and you walk behind holding both ends like you’re driving a very slow cart, and you do it four times a day at first and then six.