As we walked around my old patch she bent with interest over some white narcissi, which, if you were lucky, kept going with their pale nodding heads right into May. Prolifically, too, bridging the gap between the forget-me-nots and tulips. They happily needed little tending, although I couldn’t resist pulling a few weeds from around them. Trisha instinctively crouched and did the same, so that when Josh and Francis appeared in the open French windows, nursing a glass of red wine apiece, we were talking so much we hadn’t heard them. We both straightened up, rather guiltily, our hands full of weeds and dirt. Josh widened his eyes theatrically.

‘Is this what’s known as garden shaming?’ he enquired dryly, and we laughed.

‘You’ll probably get a bill, Josh,’ Francis told him. ‘Knowing my wife. Can’t tell you the number of women who’ve asked for garden advice and then been charged.’

‘Ooh, what a terrible fib!’ Trisha declared, her eyes dancing. ‘Once,’ she turned to me, ‘an acquaintance – not even a friend – asked me to stop by and have a look at her garden. I was there for two hours. She picked my brains for the entire time as we walked around – she even took notes! Drew a plan! I’m afraid my daughter was so incensed when she heard, she insisted I bill her.’

‘My daughter would be the same,’ I told her. ‘She used to be astonished when I wrote copious notes to would-be novelists whose manuscripts I read – but they were mostly young and I didn’t mind. One elderly chap did treat it as a weekly seminar, though, and I had to keep it from Imogen.’

‘Oh, you write books?’

It had slipped out, perhaps because so much else really mustn’t slip out. But it wasn’t something I brought up, as a rule. People were too interested, and I always felt I’d stolen the spotlight, somehow, in some sort of power grab. On the other hand, if I didn’t mention it, hostesses were often put out, saying – I put you next to Gerald because he’s writing a novel!

‘What sort of things do you write?’ asked Trisha, which was always the first question. I could see Josh looking at me with interest, perhaps wondering how I’d describe it.

‘Oh, just silly detective stories,’ I said quickly. ‘Very much beach reads.’