It is my final night in the UK. I have finished the last supper, checked things off my list, felt pleased about my list efficiency and written a list for the morning.

I have also finished packing. Sometimes you find solutions for problems you didn’t know existed in the first place; in this case it was the Space Saver vacuum bag. Mention was made of these on one of my new staff WhatsApp groups and I was, of course, quick to pooh-pooh such a notion. Then I ordered some and wondered where this polythene genius had been all my life. Apart from the mild exertion needed to operate the mini reverse-pump and suck the air out of your clothing (and, incidentally, the fun out of the afternoon which could have been spent watching Netflix and eating biscuits) I can’t see the downside. My clothes fit easily into my suitcase and when it came to closure the zip zipped round with ease without me having to sit on it.

As the sun sets on my last day in Liverpool (until Christmas, let’s not get too carried away) I feel unnervingly calm. Perhaps it is because an ending is inevitable before you can have a new beginning, and as a wise lady once said, “Where the Lord closes a door, somewhere he opens a window”. And so I am left wondering how many more problems I will encounter over the coming days, weeks and months and how many more solutions there are that I don’t yet know about. They are doubtlessly waiting for me in the vacuum bag of life.