Halfway through the week already, and still no hint from Rose as to what kind of new role she has in mind for me. Although, in her defence, she’s been crazily busy and hardly in the office due to all her meetings and press interviews and whatnot.

Now, I’m starting to wonder if she has me earmarked for working with these new teams of youngsters in some capacity. Not as their mentor, not running these ‘platforms for innovation’, as she keeps calling them, but perhaps as an older, wiser (ha!) participant to help to keep things on track? There must be some benefits of not being young anymore, e.g. the accumulation of life experience. Being (fairly) unflappable when things go wrong. Maybe Rose sees me as the wide old sage who’ll inspire the youngsters to come up with innovative new product lines without tumbling into bickering and disarray.

I like to think I’m pretty good with young people. After all, it’s not so long since Spencer was living here and I was having to deal with his teenagery behaviour. We rubbed along pretty well, apart from the brief period from when he was around thirteen to eighteen, which I realise now is not such a brief period. He was capable of being a royal pain in the arse, burning his French jotters in the garden and patronising me by patiently explaining the situation in Palestine, as if I had the mental capacity of a sea sponge. But we staggered through it eventually, and apart from that, I worked with numerous youth groups in theatres over the years. And if I learnt one thing, it’s that young people are generally fine – and can actually be lovely to be around – if you’re not their mum.

Anyway, at least my prospects are looking hopeful, whereas Isla has just been given the startling news that the museum, where she has worked for fifteen years, looks set to close early next year, if visitor numbers don’t improve. She sounds terribly stressed, so I persuade her to leave her kids to their own devices for a few hours, and to come over to mine for the evening.

She looks tired and drawn as I make us pasta and pour her a glass of wine.

‘I’m not sure management have it in them to change the way we do things,’ she says, swirling tagliatelle around her fork at the kitchen table. ‘They’re so set in their ways, and we all know we can’t compete with the big, exciting temporary exhibitions – the crowd pullers like Coco Chanel, Frida Kahlo or a Tyrannosaurus Rex. And so we end up just pottering along, the way we always have done. I can’t imagine that changing.’