My family of birth often seem like strangers to me, strangers whose histories I know but whose lives are less relevant to me than those of people thousands of miles away whom I have yet to meet.

I have not lived 'at home', in the place where my parents live, since the brief time I spent there as a teenager after we moved from my childhood home.

Even before that, when I was living with them, I never really fitted in. My parents were, still are, proud of me, but they were always slightly bewildered by their little cuckoo too.