"I can now do hills without having to think about it, I don't have to rest when I'm out and about around town," he said.

“This may not pass the House because all it takes is one tweet from a billionaire 15 minutes from now, and House Republicans will go running for the hills,” Murphy told CNN on Friday.

It provided time for parkruns in Perth, walks in the hills and standing on the side of pitches watching his son play hockey.

Proudly, he said the arak, an aniseed based spirit popular across the Middle East, came from the Assad family's home town in the hills behind the port of Latakia.

Some of these will be wintry with a mix of sleet, hail and snow over the hills.