Pulling my duvet over my head, I wonder how I’m going to get through the next forty-eight hours. The easiest thing to do would be to stay here in the dark, torturing myself with my thoughts until I start hyperventilating again. But maybe I can save that as a treat for tomorrow. I need company, and fresh air. That can’t make things any worse. Maybe Louise fancies an afternoon drink. If anything is going to distract me from my troubles, it will be throwing myself on the mercy of the various rail replacement bus services that lie between here and Fulham.

I send her a message, and she replies with heartwarming, if terrifying alacrity. Come over!!! XXX Imogen is going West.

I’m so excited that the nice man in Gail’s gets to hear all of my plans in great detail. ‘An afternoon tea?’ he smiles. ‘That sounds delightful. But, croissants—that’s an unconventional choice! We do some scones, if you’d rather…’

As soon as he mentions it, I can feel my cheeks getting hotter. I can feel what Robert Browning described as ‘that faint half-flush that dies along her throat’—or rather, the luminous red blotch that flares up on my neck when I feel especially awkward. (It’s clashing magnificently with my vintage pink Laura Ashley stripy dress, £12.99 at the Notting Hill British Heart Foundation, purchased after reading four different magazine articles about Cottagecore.)

‘Um, scones sound good, why not? I’ll take six of those too! And maybe the croissants will keep for breakfast, or something.’ These are croissants unlike any that I have ever met before, gleaming spirals embellished with flaked almonds, mirror-shiny with apricot jam. If I’d seen them anywhere but a bakery counter, I’d have assumed that they were going to have their picture taken for Architectural Digest. I thought They look posh, Louise will like them, I’ll take six of those. It turns out that each croissant costs nearly two pounds. The man has already put them in a glossy white box.

Fulham is fairyland. Right down to the tiny, warm-white sparkling lights, threaded through the trees. It has its own seasons. In Mitcham, the only sign of spring is that the streets seem to have a slightly higher ratio of brown to grey. (You won’t hear the sweet sound of the first cuckoo, but I have seen a pigeon doing battle with a Cornetto wrapper.) Here, nature is blushing even harder than I am. Every shop doorway is framed by pink and white petals. Nearly everyone is dressed to match the pastel macarons, piled up in every shop window. Even the key cutting and shoe repair place has a cake stand filled with lilac macarons, flanking a display of Kiwi Colour Shine Leather Polish.