So it’s Tuesday afternoon and behind me on the day bed in my office there is a heap of unwearable tat from which I have to find an outfit for A Special Occasion.

Tomorrow morning I fly to London for a lunch with the literary great and good, organised to herald the June publication of my new novel.

I’ve known about this lunch for many months and I would have given a little thought to what I’d wear, only I forgot.

Or at least, in the fantastical inner world of my novelist’s mind, I had a closet full of of remarkably gorgeous threads. I was quite forgetting that a) my best outfits are all intended for after-dark and would look like a mishap in a lurex factory if worn in full daylight and b) some bastard has crept in and secretly shrunk everything down to two sizes too small. 

I thought I’d wear a skirt. But the mid-calf skirt looked so mumsie and the knee-length skirt cried out for shoes with a heel and as of last Thursday when I suffered what I can only describe as an OWWWW SONOFABITCH gout attack in my big toe, high heels are out. Which brings me back to pants, black or navy. In other words, what I wear every other day of the year.

Is it a bird? Is it a plane? Is it a fabulously dressed best-selling novelist? No. It’s a repeat offender from the Sensible Blouse and  Elasticated Waistband departments of Marks & Spencer.

Guess I’ll just have to blind them with my wit.