Bereft

Monday 23rd July

Dear Bernie,
I had a dream a little while ago that I was on a boat on the wide, blue, sublime, sargasso sea and there were beanbags all over the deck. For a time I wondered what the beanbags meant.......... now I know they're floatation devices for when the boat sinks. Tamsin, your massage therapist ex-wife, must have had a sixth sense about the brevity of your planned visit next week. How come your ex-wife knows more about your travel arrangements than I do. Maybe I need to adopt Tamsin's mantra, for you know she let me in on The Secret.

So please don't ring me as I won't be home. I'll be on the commuter train catching flu and chanting, "This is the first day of the rest of my life and I'm eternally grateful for everything that life throws at me. I live in abundance and will never look at a beanbag with disdain again. I am at one with my flotation device....... I am at one with my flotation device."

I think you and Helen should stay at Bora Bora for as long as possible (provided you can get a broadband connection). It's a beautiful place and I wish you both every happiness. Isn't that where they made that iconic film, what do you call it, The Blue Lagoon? Helen could take an eyeliner pencil and she could make her eyebrows stretch right across her face and she could pretend she was Brooke Shields. You could be the boy that nobody knew the name of and you could play and frolick in the warm seas and catch fish. I've decided if ever I attempt love triangles again, I'll select an equilateral one in a warm climate. The scalene variety in the sub-zero temperatures really sucks. There's no water because it's all frozen in the pipes, which has given me the time instead of showering to write this email........ for which I am eternally grateful and I am at one with my frozen pipes, and this is the first day of the rest of my life, sequential and ad infinitum. I never did do Latin so I don't know if you spell it with a double d.

Harriet