I’ve spent the whole day of the official Easter holiday working on my dissertation, which has to be handed in two weeks from now. I will spend every working moment and possibly every waking moment between now and then doing the same. I’m a drone. I’m as boring as it’s humanly possible to be. Basically nothing of any interest to anyone will occupy my mind from now until the document is printed, sealed in an envelope then posted.

Therefore you can expect grab shots of things that I can pick up from one place, dump down in another then shoot. This is the first of many, I suspect. It’s the last garlic clove, left over from making supper and it’s in an illegal place – it’s on the bread chopping board so garlic, chilli and onions are utterly forbidden on it. I really hate biting into a slice of toast to discover that it’s been cut from the loaf on a garlicky board and therefore is tainted. Urgh – there is nothing more likely to knock me off my stride than that.

Strangely, garlic toast used to feature strongly in my life as a breakfast item. Not for me you understand, but for Colin and Paul, who considered the night before’s garlic bread toasted for breakfast as a delicacy. I LOVE the pair of them for that (among other things) – the sheer irreverence of eating stale garlic bread for breakfast without a thought for the consequences is a stroke of utterly lovely genius. There is precious little of that kind of anarchic behaviour in my world these days. Sometimes, I think back to Tachbrook Road in Southall, the first home I owned, with nothing but joy. Today is one of those days!