Last November everything broke, now everything is disappearing into thin air.  Over the course of the last few days I’ve left a bag in a shop and lost my stapler, a sheet of wrapping paper and the pointy thing that goes with the CD player, all of which I know must be somewhere in my study.  None of these things may be vital, but it is still incredibly irritating, and the more I can’t find any of them, the crosser I get.  And even more annoying is when one reappears without warning in a place where I couldn’t  possibly have missed seeing it for the last three days, like the pointy thing which unaccountably turned up a few minutes ago smack in the middle of my desk on top of a book.  I am darkly convinced there are other forces at work!  This would also account for the fact that I managed to lose a trainer in a changing cubicle at the gym, which after all is not that large an area to search thoroughly.   I then had the shame of ringing up the next day and asking if anyone had handed in a Marks & Spencer trainer, so now everyone at the gym knows how terminally uncool I am.  But the happy end to this particular story is that someone had indeed found the trainer (although where remains a mystery), so I am afraid that I will have defy all those of you who have scoffed at the notion of me going to the gym on a regular basis.   Why this obstinate refusal on the part of friends – and indeed perfect strangers! – to believe that I have what it takes to be a fitness fanatic?  Nobody seems to think that I am capable of more strenuous exercise than lifting a gin and tonic to my lips.  Can’t imagine where they got an idea like that from.

After carefully writing my timetable to finish the next book by 2nd July, I promptly threw it all into question by taking on another part-time job.  This means that for most of June I will be working in the mornings, running round to the next job for the afternoon, and coming home to walk Mungo, cook dinner for my paying guests and write an entire book in the evenings.  In between times I need to find time to learn how to update this website and write a conference paper, an essay and a chapter of my thesis – and keep up my fitness regime, of course, if only to prove all you doubting Thomasinas wrong.  Stressed, moi????