The boy he is in the south of France, and he calls and sends texts that say, essentially, “It is hot”, “I am doing nothing”, “This is great”, “We are going swimming later”. Evidently he cannot say or write more because he is in such a state of relaxation that what he offers already requires some great effort. I was talking to him the other day, and I said, “Alors quand tu dis que vous faites rien, genre, vous faites rien ? Mais rien rien rien ?” “Rien,” he said, and if he were a cat he would also have been licking the last of the cream from his whiskers. I am going to be in the south of France, me too, in some weeks, so I said, with some concern: “But me,” I said, “I do things.” “We will,” he said, “teach you to do less.”

It has come to this, you see: some nights ago I looked at the hour and realised bedtime was long gone, and there was work yet to be done. I said to myself, then: “I can sleep on the train to work tomorrow morning.” I think I did it, too.

Tuesday night I was planning to chair a panel, then Wednesday night I chaired a panel. It gets easier every time I do it. Mia’d asked me, last month, when I chaired last month’s panel, if I was any good at this public speaking thing. I’d wiped my palms on my skirt, probably, and said something like: “Rurgh.” “Yeah, I know,” she’d said, “last time I had to do it I thought I was going to throw up in my mouth.”

I didn’t throw up in my mouth then, and I didn’t throw up in my mouth Wednesday night; and Wednesday night I only trembled once, and briefly, rather than throughout the first half-hour. So I am not perfect, but I am certainly practicing.

After the panels, though, everything is relaxed and you go to the pub and the only thing to worry about is when dinner will happen. I don't know how they do it, these jolly Englishpeople – how do you do it, jolly Englishpeople? – but they seem happy to sit about and drink and natter for hours on end with no dinner in sight. No mention of minted broad beans, or sugar snap peas tossed with sesame seeds; no references to small clay dishes of grilled sardines, no hankerings for puddings sweet or savoury; no words spoken, even, about a sausage on a stick. Olive says it is because I don’t drink beer, because apparently beer would fill me up quick, but the thing is, beer smells like pee, whereas the orange-passionfruit J20s are sweet and orange, and generally cost less than two pounds a pop. (FYI, one day you might think to try the apple-melon J2O, partly because it is green. Do not. It tastes green.)

I was telling Doug, Wednesday night at the Pitcher and Piano, that I am going berry picking this weekend with Nora – yes! City girls go berry picking! O, how the farmers will laugh – and he proceeded – he is full of surprises, this Doug – to show me the different ways of picking berries. His wrists were dexterous, and nuanced. “Blueberries,” he said, and his fingers made quick, snapping-picking motions. “Blackberries,” he said, and, with thumb and forefinger close together, he slid his hand down a fragile and an imaginary branch. “Strawberries,” he said, and rifled in imaginary bushes thick with berries deep red like the deepest red of jewels.