We dug for hours.

Initially, the family’s two teenage boys tried to race each other. Scooping as fast as they could, but even the boys slowed when they realised the task ahead of us.

It became a rhythmic shovelling of dirt on our long spearlike sticks. I remembered back to England where we had proper shovels and spades.

Truth be told, if I had a shovel at that point, I’d probably trade it for anything (except rice) to eat.

Occasionally as we shovelled, we talked, Ayamin told me the family were from the south of Syria and had left the country two years ago. At the family’s centre was the woman I’d been calling Grandma and her wheelchair-bound husband who sat shivering underneath a tarpaulin while the rain came down.

The old couple had two sons: Mahdi and Jamal, who were joined by their wives Rima and Yara and eight grandchildren between them.

They’d been hungry, been beaten, been robbed, yet they considered themselves lucky. They’d all made it alive.

‘Even him,’ she pointed at the grandfather in the wheelchair peeking out from beneath the tarpaulin.

The man in the wheelchair fascinated me. Our journey had been brutally tough and terrifying and I imagined how much harder his must have been to come all this way without being able to take a step.

The sun was still up as we neared completion, and the older man spoke to one of the kids.

The kid turned to me, ‘He says you are a good work,’ then Aya as well, ‘You both are.’

I nodded, ‘I’m impressed by him.’

The kid translated it and the man shook his head, he said something and this time Ayamin translated.

‘He doesn’t think he was brave to come here. He says he just had to. He says he wouldn’t have survived if he’d been left alone, so he might as well be with the family he loves.’

The man stared at me, right in the eyes, his were almost grey. They looked like they’d seen the world.

I nodded, and he did too. We didn’t need anyone to translate that for us.

To finish the tent bases we scrambled around in the water for rocks and piled them around the edges. Then we washed our hands in the water and said goodbye.

Grandma, bless her soul, was trying to hand us things for doing the work. First, it was a nice walking pole they’d found, then a root which they thought might be a potato, and even a few of her family’s dwindling stash of coins.

We shook our heads, I put an arm around Ayamin’s shoulder and we walked back to Winnie the Pooh. The inside of our tent was damp, our mattress was damp, and just about everything in it had been affected by the water.

Only the pack had semi-escaped the water’s wrath. We pulled on a few pieces of dry clothing and I used my remaining shirt to dry the top of our bed. Water dripped from the roof onto us as we lay there. Both of us were sniffing, and my throat was feeling even drier than when I woke up. I rolled closer to Aya to keep warm, and also because I loved her.

There was no way in the world we were going to get a fire going so we opened the sack of rice and just swallowed each grain raw which normally is a bad idea, but we needed something to fill the gap. The little grains grated on my throat.

As we lay there Ayamin turned and laid her hand on my arm.

‘I’m glad you’re here Danny.’

I touched her face, ‘I’m glad you’re here Aya.’

She nestled into my chest and despite the rain still beating away at Winnie the Pooh above us and the tent being completely soaked, I felt okay. My muscles were exhausted, but with Ayamin’s skin next to mine, I didn’t feel the aches.

‘Goodnight Danny,’

I felt strangely content, it was the same feeling I’d had when we were sitting in the coastguard rooms like I’d been through the worst and survived. I was just glad the day was over.

‘Night Ayamin.’