Next step is for the esteemed jury to read through it, and then we’ll all meet for a private defense at the end of June. If I make it through that, then they’ll schedule a public defense for later in the summer.

It feels odd, to tell the truth. I was sort of expecting angels singing, or at least a feeling of discernible triumph. But to be perfectly honest, it’s really quite mundane. You turn it in, the process begins, things go on. Which is fitting, really, considering how I’ve tried in my work to valorize the mundane, the micro, the quotidian.

I feel very grateful that my supervisor and team surprised me with a prosecco celebration, because otherwise I would have gone home oddly deflated. It was a very sweet – and entirely unexpected – thing to do. I haven’t had a surprise party in ages!

If I’m ever lucky enough to have PhD students of my own, I’m going to introduce a new tradition. I have a lovely and rather enormous gong from back in my musician days. On submission, graduate students will get the chance to bang that gong – and then we can get to the prosecco.