Forget the lemon zester, just cut it, that’s best way to put it in gin! - Susan Morrison

My suggestion that a zip wire straight into the gardens would be much quicker and way more fun was met with the sort of silence you expect from a Yorkshireman who can’t be bothered expending words on such madness.

It was only for the summer, so now he’s chuntering about the house again, making noises about DIY, measuring things and constantly asking me what I want for dinner.

He is a very good cook. It’s why I married him.

He and my son both read cookery books. They love them, but I always say if they are so good, why have none of them ever been turned into a film, eh? These fancy recipes always seem to require a "thing”. Not just the usual knives, bowls and scales, but gadgets that do things. Last week he asked me where we put the lemon zester.

My brain switched to baffled mode. What is a Lemon Zester? Is it a herbal tea? No he said, witheringly. It’s a thing that zests a lemon. Nope, still no idea. I just cut lemon, I offered helpfully. It’s the best way to put it in gin. You can put a whole one in, but that makes adding tonic tricky.

We hadn’t put the lemon zester anywhere. We did not own a lemon zester. He was forced to use a substandard substitute surface to zest the lemon, until the hunt for a lemon zester secured the correct gadget. Thanks be to John Lewis.

To my untrained eye a lemon zester looks a lot like that bit on the grater that I never know what to do with.

He’s reading another recipe now. I can hear mutterings, drawers being opened and cutlery being jangled about. He’s looking for a gadget we don’t have. John Lewis beckons.