‘What is it?’ she asked in alarm. ‘Andy, what’s the matter?’

‘I just cannot get over how beautiful you are,’ he said seriously, his eyes looking deep into hers the way they used to when they first met. He took her face in his hands and proceeded to kiss her with such exquisite tenderness that before she knew it they were tearing one another’s clothes off and making love, right there on her living-room floor.

By the time they were walking hand in hand down Portobello Road, Bella’s plait was considerably more dishevelled, her cheeks considerably more flushed. Neither of them could stop smiling as they negotiated the crowds in the market and decided what to buy for their picnic.

Eventually, laden with freshly baked walnut bread, a variety of cheeses and charcuterie, a crab, some duck-liver pâté, an old-fashioned round lettuce, a ripe avocado, several tomatoes on the vine, a bunch of spring onions, a bag of cherries and three bottles of Prosecco, they reached the Boris Bikes docking station on Elgin Crescent.

‘D’you think we might have overcatered a tad?’ asked Bella, laughing.

‘Don’t worry, it won’t go to waste,’ said Andy, kissing her again. Bella smiled. Andy ate like a horse, but his tall, rangy metabolism meant that he burnt all the calories off practically before he’d consumed them.

They set off through the back streets of Notting Hill, the sun beating down on their exposed limbs, a soft cooling breeze blowing through their hair. Bella loved the Boris Bikes scheme, started only a couple of years ago by the eponymous and flamboyant mayor. What was not to love? You avoided the hideousness of the Tube, you got fit, you had fun (scary London traffic notwithstanding). And cycling through any of London’s parks was just heavenly. Handy when she lived so close to one of the biggest and most beautiful of them.

Now they’d entered Kensington Gardens and cycled past the Round Pond, along a pleasing tree-lined path until they hit Hyde Park, then a quick circuit around the Serpentine. They parked the bikes and headed on foot to their favourite spot, close to the Peter Pan statue, back in Kensington Gardens. The lake was unpopulated by boats here, but thriving with birdlife in the overgrown reeds and bulrushes. On such a beautiful day the park was teeming with people, great parties of laughing picnickers with iPod speakers, footballs and Frisbees, but here, in their special place, Andy and Bella were afforded relative privacy.

Bella spread out their tartan rug as Andy started unpacking the food.

‘First things first, though,’ he said, popping open one of the bottles of Prosecco and pouring it into two plastic cups. ‘Cheers!’ He raised his cup and smiled, the breeze ruffling his thick black hair.

‘Cheers, darling.’ Bella smiled back at him, her heart overflowing at the sight of him looking so young and carefree for once. He’d been working so hard recently, there’d been a permanent tense furrow between his eyebrows that she longed to smooth out.