We were talking — idly, as you do, in the car from a to b — about new things, how one of her friends seemed to be put off a particular secondary school because there you had to pay for your own lunch using a card…

And M says, sympathetically: everybody’s frightened of change, of course.

I nod.

Then she says: Me, I don’t know… (her voice shifts to a strong American accent) … I kinda LIKE it.

Quite. Another reason to make it til Spring.