It was one of those that we were supposed to put up only when needed, but in practice we just put it up at the start of each summer and left it there until maybe late September. I made sure it couldn't blow away in a gale by improvising all manner of hefty metal pegging-down at the corners. That worked well, but when we started to take it down last autumn we found that most of the fabric was getting past its best. I took all the fabric to the tip but have only just got round to shifting the frame. It was lovely to sit in there of a summer's evening after the barbie with a glass or two, listening to Joanie or Carly on my UE Boom 2 speakers (we have no neighbours), so we've replaced it with what should be a much easier beast to handle, a Berghaus air shelter that has four corner "posts" that you blow up with a single pumping point (pump provided) and which can be let down in a trice. We haven't tried it yet. I'm filled with trepidation.

Somebody told me that Joanie has ditched Spotify...