Funny how you can spend years whizzing round the world without really knowing your own country. Big mistake I’m at last realising. So for once, tucking away my carbon bootprint, I headed north from London by road and, again for once, the partner was in tow. Or rather he was towing me. We drive very differently. I tend to go hell for leather and catch up on lost time burning up motorways, while he, of a distinctly more patient frame of mind, deals with city traffic ten times more efficiently. My other big wheels forte is twisting through hills and, in the case of this little sortie, dales. These Yorkshire specialities nestle between spectacular moors, so I was in my element.

I’ve always enjoyed a quick fix of Turkish kebap - preferably a tender shish singed to perfection over open coals in clouds of pungent smoke. They do it pretty well round the corner from me in north London, but even better in Anatolia itself (that name is so much more exotic than Turkey, or Turkiye, which somehow gobbles). Anyway, what I was unaware of until last week was the vast range of kebabs at their source. Nor did I realise that history in south-east Anatolia floats around between 9000 BC (we actually saw a cult centre from this time) and the Ottomans - racing through Hittites, neo-Hittites, Assyrians, Romans and many others. As mind-boggling as the food, but far more conjectural.