Today I made a decision. Having spent the past week indulging in an orgy of Olympic-level faffing, I admitted that I need a more disciplined approach to lockdown and so, this morning, I hired a personal trainer. Her name is Laurie and she’s on tap, right here, 24/7. Barmy as it sounds, I think I…

I was rather tickled to learn that at some point in the 1830s Alexander Pushkin, Russia’s revered literary giant, found himself quarantined because of a cholera epidemic. He was at his country pile and alone, though I suspect his idea of ‘alone’ was no mates, no fiancée and just a skeleton staff. He wrote a…

This is what happens when a person is entering Week 3 of lockdown and discovers, in the back of a cupboard, an unopened packet of origami paper. Finding a fiver down the arm of the sofa could not have brought me more joy. I might have spent the afternoon writing or sewing or even sitting…

Now I look back, there are a lot of things my Mum omitted to tell me. Such as ‘Do not suffer fools’ and ‘Learn how to use an Excel spreadsheet, my girl.’ I’ve just spent a whole morning manually loading information from Excel into another document and I have cursed through gritted teeth my lack…