…sounds like a glorious overstatement. But it’s not. It is a truly glorious soap. Aleppo soap is a completely natural product and contains no perfumes, colours or other additives. The principle ingredients are olive oil and bay leaf oil.

If my grandchildren thought of me when they looked at the desolation that has overcome great patches of the earth and thought, ‘He knew what was happening but he did nothing about it’, I would feel deeply, deeply ashamed of myself.

This morning I opened my first box of goodies from Wikaniko. Interesting how a few basic cleaning and household products feel transformed into some kind of treat now they’re nice eco ones (so I suppose they are goodies in more ways than one, fnar). Amongst the lovely recyclable screwed up newspaper in the box was a product that I didn’t think would be much cop but equally was so inexpensive, I couldn’t resist: the magic eraser. When you rub it on your purse, it fills with coins.

With Christmas fast approaching, I’m starting to angst over those few people who are impossible to buy for. You know the type – we’ve all got at least one in the family.