I am writing this in my local cafe where moments ago I ordered poached eggs on toast. The waiter has just come back and told me that he's talked to the kitchen, but they don't have any poached eggs.

'So no eggs at all?' I said, surprised.

'Yes, we have eggs, but not poached.'

'So ... do you have fried eggs?'

'Yes! Or scrambled.'

'So you have eggs, but ...'

'None of them poached.'

'Well ... could you poach one?'

He thought about it.

'I'll double check.'

Moments later, he reappeared.

'That's fine!' he said, with two thumbs up.

I am getting the hang of Britain.

AUTUMN

POLLARD

Over the past year or so, it has become abundantly clear that I must live very close indeed to Su Pollard.

And not just very close indeed. But perilously close.

So close that, sometimes, on a quiet afternoon, if you just stop for a moment and listen, you can actually hear Su Pollard. It is like I live on the Spotted pages of Heat magazine, but am entirely limited to the Su Pollard section.

Wherever I go, I see her. Su Pollard in the newsagents, buying bread and milk. Su Pollard at the pub, talking about Steve Irwin. Su Pollard stopping on the street to talk to dogs, or ruffle children's hair, or put a blue bag in a bin. And what's more, everyone seems to know Su Pollard. The man in the butchers. The postman, too, and the odd man with the strange hats who lives in the house on the corner. Sometimes I think it is just me that doesn't know Su Pollard, and it makes me sad, because I reckon me and Su Pollard could be close.

I sometimes consider what the me of the early 1980s would think if the me of now could tell him this. Tell him that one day, I would live in London - the nation's capital! - and that my life would be so glamorous and exciting that I would not only see Su Pollard, star of Hi-De-Hi! and You Rang, M'Lord?, but see her most days. See her as she chats with dogs or struts about in silver hotpants. I think the me of the 1980s would probably explode, which would be inconvenient at best, as history proves I'd be needed later on in my life.

'Do you think it's strange how I see Su Pollard all the time?' I ask my wife, 'and yet I've never once met her?' We are having dinner in our local pub, and I keep looking around in case Su Pollard walks in.

'I suppose it is a bit strange,' my wife replies. 'But what I find more strange is how you look at her website all the time.'