But unfortunately I couldn’t really do justice to either before giving my speech because I was too nervous, so all I got out of it was a thimble of coffee and a weird mint that tasted as if it had been stored in a damp box for ten years, at the end of the meal once it was all over.

Afterwards, when I was earning my fee by mingling, a woman asked me where I got my inspiration from and I said off the Internet.

She said, ‘Really?’

‘No, I’m joking,’ I confessed. ‘I really get all my inspiration from nature.’

And then she nodded darkly and said there was certainly a lot of that about, especially in Shrimphaven, and when I saw her leaving later she appeared to be married to a very strange and exotic specimen of it.

Exciting news! I am to be one of the Brown’s Bookshops’ Bright New Flowers of Fiction in Spring! I realized they only bloomed briefly before being replaced, but I still couldn’t figure out why now, after all these books, though the tabloid stuff might have swung it.

Linny said it should be Dull Old Bloom of Fiction, which I thought was a bit snippy, but then, she’d just sent another of her manuscripts off and had it back again practically by return. I wish she’d let me read one sometime so I could see if she’s any good, but she won’t.

The proofs of Dark, Passionate Earth had arrived, and not only did Salubrious seem to be rushing the book towards publication at unseemly speed (probably to get rid of me quicker), but they were also economizing on production, because it appeared to have been typeset by someone whose native language was something other than English.

Still, you could never say that I wasn’t a professional and so I had corrected and turned the thing around to Jinni at Salubrious within three days. She emailed me instantly to say it had arrived, and to thank me for sending it back so promptly. She seemed to be scared of me for some reason, and scared of Tiger Tim for good reason, so she was between a rock and a hard place, and if I was the rock I choose to be Blue John fluorspar because it’s so pretty.

Sometimes I think getting a computer has not so much opened up a whole new world as a can of worms.

I mean, aren’t emails quick? Just as you reach the end of all the answers to messages you’ve had piled up for days, you get the replies back, with more questions, and the whole thing is like some infernal cycle that never stops.