For as long as I have known him, I have been slightly in awe of Quercus’s ability to eat. Man, he can really eat. Vast quantities of potatoes – mashed, boiled, or roasted, the quantities don’t vary – together with sausages which are only in single figures because they are sold in eights, and bowls of ice-cream piled genuinely high enough to make most ice-cream vans look amateurish – these are images from Quercus’s childhood which continue to hold true in his adult life.

And because of his prodigious appetite and catholic tastes, I have never made a big deal out of the very few things that he doesn’t like to eat.

Except.

Except.

Except for the fact that it has always been slightly boggling to me that Quercus, man of pudding, man of afters, man of ice-cream sundaes, does not like custard. DOES NOT LIKE CUSTARD. So, apple pie and… NOT CUSTARD. Apple crumble and… NOT CUSTARD. Stewed rhubarb and – yep, you’ve guessed it – NOT CUSTARD. I mean, I know there is a place in this world for cream and the varieties thereof which are frequently found in the west country (where cream is clotted, largely), but still – custard! Glorious, yellowy, vanillaishly deliciously custard. Or not, if you are Quercus.

Consider, then, my surprise when he revealed today, after we have been together for nearly a decade, enjoying what I believed to be a relationship based on mutual trust and honesty, that he likes doughnuts filled with custard! (As an aside, I didn’t even know that doughnut came other than with jam, or with bits missing in the middle.) NOT JUST CUSTARD, previously rejected as a heinous substance unfit for human consumption and causing the most intense expressions of disgust in one person of my acquaintance, but COLD CUSTARD.

Clearly, a new era has just dawned. There will be no allowances made from this day onwards. Custard it is. Custard it shall remain.