Why do people assume I am posh?

If we cram any more doctors into our spare rooms we can put a sign outside advertising NHS accommodation.

We came by the first one when he answered my ad on a well-known website, booked for a few nights and ended up staying for years. He has a family home elsewhere, but needs somewhere to sleep when he is working late at the nearby hospital.

I cannot find a small house with a few acres that I can afford anywhere in Britain

He is an anaesthetist and no trouble at all. We see him only one or two nights a week, or sometimes less, depending on his shift pattern. He arrives at night, looking like he’s anaesthetised himself, microwaves a ready-meal, then creeps silently to bed. He leaves very early the next morning and we won’t see him again for days or weeks.

‘I don’t know how we got so lucky with that lodger,’ I say to the builder boyfriend. ‘What were the chances of finding someone to pay us rent who we hardly ever see?’ And he agrees: hardly any chance.

But evidently we were wrong. Another doctor contacted me through the same site and is coming to stay for a week while on placement at the local GP surgery. From what she has said, I get the feeling she would like to find somewhere she can stay during the week on a longer-term basis.

I’m going to put her in the main bedroom. With the other doctor in the second bedroom, the builder boyfriend and I can sleep in the loft. It doesn’t have an en suite or a wardrobe even, but it does have a daybed and a sofa so we can manage, I’m sure.