Five language lessons in and we can finally, in perfect Mandarin, order a bottle of milk, a glass of wine and three dictionaries. What I failed to manage this evening was to convince the taxi driver I wasn’t really capable of joining in with his Mandarin-based rendition of Nessun Dorma. “Eaaaah?” beckoned the taxi driver in a rising tone, gesticulating with two thumbs up (whilst driving the taxi) and beaming at me in his mirror, “Eeeaaah, ho ho ho!?”. Never been so glad to hear adverts appear on the radio.

What I was trying to do in the taxi was work out at what point Shanghai becomes “home”, or indeed, what makes something home. Nearly two months in, the lack of furniture means the house still feels more like a hotel. But our local area is becoming more and more familiar, and I don’t think I’ll ever tire of the food (two very spicy Sichuan meals this week so far) or the late nights (JB forcing us to visit a late night pool bar after our Mandarin lesson on Wednesday night).

According to Wikipedia, home is “usually a place in which an individual or a family can live and store personal property.”

B*llocks of course: home is wherever Bronwen is.