Everlasting love

A few weeks ago, feeling stale and stressed, I escaped to our dilapidated cottage in Dorset for a few days on my own. When I was younger, and especially when I was drinking heavily, I often felt ill at ease in my own company, but these days I get on quite happily alone, though I sometimes worry that I talk to myself too much, and wonder whether I am going slightly mad in my old age. I once read that it’s OK to talk to yourself, but there might be cause for concern if you find that you are answering yourself back. I do that all the time.

If I am going mad at least it is a contented kind of dottiness, and walking on the cliffs, eating seafood at the splendid Hive Beach Café in Burton Bradstock and drinking endless cups of PG Tips did me the world of good.