I started, as instructed, with the curd. Lovely and lemony but reluctant to thicken. Despite my persistent stirring it didn’t really thicken at all. Very hard to judge what thick means so I thought perhaps it would thicken upon cooling.

The creation of the sponge was quite straightforward and very satisfying. Diana’s recipe advises spreading the curd on the still warm sponge and then rolling. The curd however was still not thick and I thought I’d roll the sponge empty and give the curd yet more time in the fridge to chill and hopefully thicken.

This gave me time to go to see the wig lady. I’ve not yet lost my hair and I’ve been told it may not happen but I want to be prepared just in case. The wig lady was very friendly but as it turns out totally unprepared for a Corney head. No wig would fit, despite her determined stretching and tugging, nothing in her collection could be found to do anything more than crest like an awkward toupee on my head. ‘This has never happened before’ she said. ‘I’ve never seen anyone with a head as big as yours’ and ‘it doesn’t look that big’. So stressed was she by the whole debacle she started to break out into a hot flush and apologised for a ‘wasted journey’. There was no waste here; Mum and I had such a giggle. She has offered to see if they can order in a ‘special wig’. Here is to hoping that it doesn’t come to that and my hair sticks around!

So post wig it was definitely time for tea and time for swiss roll assembly. The curd still hadn’t thickened but I pressed on anyway and slopped the curd over the roll. If I was to make the roll again I would find another curd recipe or add corn flour to make sure it did thicken. As much of the curd oozed out of the roll it ended up being a little dry but Mum and Rosie went back for a second slice so it can’t have been that bad.