Four weeks have passed. The horrible blue boot is long gone. I’ve even been running again – but not with Blake Chadwick. I’ve changed my route and now run through the Linear Park, which I can do straight from my own front door. My foot ached a bit at first, but now it’s fully healed and fully functioning again. Having improved my fitness, I’d like to keep it up – even though it is utterly pointless now. Maybe my cholesterol levels will thank me for it in years to come.

Relations between Greg and me are still strained. I spent a week on the sofa, but now I’m back in our ‘marital’ bed. I thought the fact that I’m not going away now would have helped to defrost the atmosphere between us, but it hasn’t. If anything, Greg has been worse in the last few weeks and I just can’t summon up the energy to extend the olive branch. We’re still not touching, not communicating, not behaving at all like a couple who’ve been married for twenty-odd years. It saddens me, but I’m not sure how we can find our way back. At the moment, I’m too down, too depressed to be able to formulate a plan to restore our entente cordiale.

I’ve still been making sandwiches and cakes for my colleagues. A little sideline that I’m really enjoying, and which has also brought in almost a thousand pounds. It would have easily made up my fare for the trip to Peru, but I try not to think about that too much.

I also sold Chelsea’s designer clothes at a car-boot sale – a hideous experience that I have no desire to repeat. Rabid hordes descended on me as I unloaded the car, all but grabbing the clothes out of my hands. However, when the scrum died down, I was pleased to see that I’d made two hundred pounds. I gave that to my sister, who is still, it seems, no nearer to sorting out what is happening in her life.

Chelsea had to take her children out of posh education after all as, even with my contribution, she was woefully short of the required money and there were no easy payment terms on offer at Swanley School. Once you haven’t got the cash, you’re out. No ifs, no buts. Henry and Sophia are now, by all accounts, doing very well at their local primary school. Of my money, there is still no sign.

There’s a mounting air of excitement here in the offices. Everyone is getting ready for the impending trip and there’s a lot of team-bonding going on. I feel desperately, desperately outside of it all. I’m going to be left on my own here for two weeks manning the offices when I still wish with all my heart that I was going too.