I worked late at school and Lyra thought she had an English lesson so we got to have dinner together while the grandparents watched the kids. When we came back I always ask Elise to say thank you to them and they always laugh.

I know why because of the time we flew to Beijing, so internally within China, and we couldn’t check in because the kid’s didn’t/don’t have visas in their British passports so - long-story-short* - Lyra’s parents had to go from their home to our flat, a 30minute trip, at 10pm on Friday night to get a document and then to take a photo of it and send it to us so that we could check in. Lyra said thank you for doing all that, and her dad laughed and said, it’s family, you don’t need to say thank you, of course we’d do it.

Though, it goes back to when Lyra and I were first going out and her very closest friends laughed at me for saying thank you when we went to visit them because, to their mind, I didn’t need to say it.

But I’m British and conditioned to say thank you at all times so it’s strange to deal with this. I ain’t changing though but it’ll be interesting to see where the kids fall!

*Their Mum is Chinese, so they are Chinese. Putting a visa in their British passport would be equivalent to admitting they aren’t Chinese - which they are. We have to get special documents every time we leave China.