Fighting addiction

As was so often the case with Bertie Wooster when he faced an interview with his fearsome Aunt Agatha, I feel a sense of impending doom as I write this on a beautiful morning in late June. The roses smell sweet, the sun is shining, and a light breeze is blowing through my study window. I ought to be at peace with the world but, in a few days’ time, the chickens will come home to roost, and the prospect is making my stomach knot with an all-too-familiar mixture of guilt and fear.

My wife and her sister came into some money following the death last summer of their mother. She wasn’t a rich woman but, following the sale of her attractive bungalow in an idyllic Hampshire village, there’s a useful sum and, since both Nicki and I are financial illiterates who simply bung what money we have into the bank at a negligible rate of interest, we thought it would be a good idea to discuss it with a financial adviser.