We didn’t go to church this morning because, well, never mind why … without church Sunday is shapeless. Mr F went out for newspapers while I waited for a friend’s taxi to arrive to take him to the airport.

I wish a) my husband wouldn’t buy newspapers and b) I could find the self-discipline not to read them when he does. All they do is plunge me into depression about the state of the world and the fact that no-one will pay me to comment on it. I read columnists like Lucy Cavendish and Bryony Gordon and wonder why the silver-haired readers of Chipping Sodbury don’t rise up in protest.

Our house guest was on his way back to England for a week in a writers’ retreat. He’s on a book deadline and finds it helpful to get away from all those party invitations that plague a single man in London. I’ve never been to a writers’ retreat. I pictured him walled up like an anchorite, just him and his manuscript, with someone from the Royal Literary Society pushing a bowl of gruel under the door once a day. Wrong. He gets three meals AND afternoon tea. With cake. Get thee behind me, Satan.

So with our playmate gone my Sunday sagged even further out of shape. I should really start preparing for the Harrogate Festival, a once distant, ant-like prospect that is now the size of a bull mastiff and closing fast. But I’ll think about that later. First I’m going to make buttermilk ice cream. I think it’ll make a good marriage with the tarte tatin I propose for tomorrow evening. Mr F’s Chicago cousins, many times removed but nonetheless welcome, are coming to dinner. 

Several readers have written to express the hope that I did eventually treat myself to a hat. Very kind. In fact I blew the hat budget on a fairy tutu for Panto 2012. What am I saying. There isn’t, wasn’t, nor ever will be a hat budget.