I took the beautiful top down to an elderly dressmaker in the village who was used to altering things to fit me. I am a size eight everywhere except the obvious, and so always need the shoulders and waists adjusted. I was sure it would look lovely with the skirt and I was pretty confident that no one else would be wearing the same outfit.

Once I had dropped that off I carried on up to Het’s bijou mansion, all geared up to gracefully accept the invitation to open the Shrimphaven Annual Festival of Culture, but it was all a great big swizz! I’d even borrowed Jackie’s old stripy Puffa jacket and Hunter wellies especially. But then not only did the coffee have dog hairs floating in it from all the smelly little Wiener Schnitzels, but the Nice biscuits had been left somewhere damp for so long that they weren’t.

Then Het went and pricked my smug, swollen-headed bubble (ugh, makes me sound like a big zit!) by confessing that she’d asked me round to sound me out about inviting Sergei to open the festival and be the guest of honour!

I carefully erased the disappointment out of my face while picking hairs out of my coffee, and then said I thought he might do it, but he didn’t often visit the seaside because he thought the ozone got into his delicate sinuses and made him ill, and all that fresh salty air sapped his entire system, and she said that was funny, as it was the complete opposite of what most people thought.

So I explained that he usually did think and feel the opposite way to most people, and far from finding the seaside air bracing, he always became positively lethargic in Shrimphaven.

She said, ‘Oh, that doesn’t sound very exciting for the festival, does it?’ But I pointed out that even a lethargic Sergei was twice as exciting as last year’s speaker, and if she was careful to give him enough champagne he’d sparkle all right.

Then she looked even more worried and said that the festival fund wouldn’t run to champagne and asked whether I thought a nice fizzy perry would do instead. And I said, not if they wanted him to stay longer than thirty seconds it wouldn’t, though the sight of Sergei throwing a prima donna of a wobbler was always good entertainment.

Anyway, the upshot was that I offered to prepare the ground and then, unless he was absolutely against it, Het would formally invite him.

And that seemed to be that, except that as I was putting the Puffa back on, she said kindly: ‘And you will do your usual little reading and chat in the library on the Saturday, won’t you, Tina?’