There was a fair amount of photocopying and note-taking and tea-making to be done, but I was also getting to do the odd bit of writing, as well. Mostly, though, my three years at Thump were spent trying desperately to ignore the near-constant stream of casually sexist and homophobic ‘bants’ that washed back and forth between the other staff members. A stream that tonight, at the Christmas party, will be in full flow.

Still, none of that really has anything to do with why today ended up being so terrible. No, the real terribleness was all down to that email. I try to remember now: what time did I receive it? It must have been late afternoon, I reckon. I spoke to Daphne just after it landed in my inbox, and everything just spiralled downwards from there. The idea of experiencing it all over again makes my stomach clench with dread.

The bus is approaching my stop now, and as I stand, I examine the ghost of my reflection in the window. I’m still insanely young-looking compared to my thirty-four-year-old self, but the four years I’ve just skipped over have definitely left their mark. There are the beginnings of two sharp lines at the edges of my mouth, and the skin around my eyes seems a little darker and looser than it was ‘yesterday’ in 2006.

I hop out at Holborn station and make my way through the back streets towards Covent Garden, past the theatres all decked out in festive red and gold. I find I can still perfectly recall the short walk to the office: a grubby, iMac-filled basement in a huge grey nondescript tower block.

I’m the first to arrive – it’s 9.15, still early in media terms – and I sit down at my desk and switch on my computer. I have absolutely no idea what I’m supposed to be working on, and suddenly, the idea of muddling through a whole day in this office seems laughably impossible. I found it difficult enough to fit in at this job when I wasn’t inexplicably travelling through time, so God knows how I’m supposed to interact with my colleagues with any degree of normality now. I resolve to just do exactly what I used to do: shut up and keep my head down.

There are a few documents scattered across my computer desktop, so I click on one at random. The headline screams: FRANKENSTEIN’S WAG!

Ah, yes. I remember this masterpiece quite clearly. A photomontage feature in which the best body parts of the UK’s top WAGs were cut-and-pasted together to create a Mary Shelley-inspired hybrid monster that would represent the Ultimate Footballer’s Wife. Hallowe’en was a good six weeks ago, but our editor, Graham, hadn’t let that stand in the way of such an outstanding and ground-breaking idea.