I was expecting a proofreading assignment this week, but it didn’t come in after all. Just as well, really, because if I had been sitting at my kitchen table with a pile of paper and a red pen, I surely wouldn’t have had time to bake a batch of butter biscuits and play mad scientist with a couple of bottles of food colouring. It is unlikely, had I been at the table with the papers and the red pen and some Post-its and a large dictionary, that I could have made it to as many grocery stores as I did, working my way up the supermarket hierarchy from Tesco through Waitrose, for presents for Frenchies – cream cheese and hippie cereals and a smart Stilton in a ceramic jar.

(Item! French people are wild for the smooth, smooth whip of a tub of Philadelphia cream cheese!)



Tomorrow, with the cheeses and the cereals, I’ll be on the 05h27 Eurostar to Paris. The biscuits, too, iced, and in a glass jar, and with a big red ribbon tied around the lot. This is gonna be great.