On Monday I was up at five in the morning and instead of riding the bus to work, I was on my way to Belgium to interview the owner of a real live chocolate factory. Not, I hasted to add, that the chocolate factory was in Belgium - no, in fact it's in Shepherd's Bush, about five minutes from my house. But the owner got his inspiration for the business he started while he was working in Belgium. So, off we went to follow him on his sentimental journey by Eurostar rather than the tube to White City, a little retinue, a harem of women - a PR, a photographer, a photographer's assistant, me and his Marketing Manager, all trailing him, as we went from chocolate shop to patisserie to cafe, collecting samples of chocolate and cakes as we went. It was like being with the Pied Piper of Hamlyn after the people defaulted on their payment, but instead of leading away the children, he was doing a bit of a mopping up operation on the chocolate.
There he was in a crumpled linen shirt, jeans and Italian shoes, wandering through the centre of Brussels - a confection itself with its gilded buildings and gothic decoration, like icing on a particularly elaborate wedding cake - while the photographer followed him, snapping away, and the rest of us walked behind, carrying the chocolates, like ladies in waiting and Prince Philip in drag.
But stop the week was an afternoon listening to tales of shagging pigs, shagging sheep and shagging bulls with Mr Ginger Pig and learning such gems of Farming Lore as 'nothing with nuts on makes good meat' and 'you don't want to put anything with nuts on into your mouth'. I totally agree. 'It makes them tough', apparently. There you go. That's why men are never very tender. But before this, I had dinner with the literary friend where the main conversation topic was not, as you might have expected, this being literary London, darling, the Booker longlist on which one of our authors is prominently featured, but topics of a different sort for which the younger (much younger) women at the table definitely had a scoring system.
I just ate my chicken and learned a lot that, sadly, has come too late in life to be much use to me.
Dinner wasn't ready until about nine (coincidentally the... no, I'm not going there) and so by the time we ate I had drunk rather a lot and this morning was still suffering a little.
I finally arrived at work at 8.15 almost crying with the desire for an Alka Seltzer, switched on my computer, and found a list of executive tasks left for me by Mr T who was off on a mammoth tour of South West England Rail visiting various authors.
Executive task no 1: book another train ticket for next week going to Crewe.
So far, so fairly easy. I'm getting good at Internet Fraud with the company credit card and can type his name and mastercard number faster than my own these days.
Executive task no 2. Log on to William Hill and put 100 pounds on our author Aravind's White Tiger to win the Booker.
Mr T had been, the previous morning at a Courvoisier reception (it's a tough life being at the top) and had a couple of miniatures sitting on his desk, one of which, he gave over to me after I'd stared at it wistfully, and which I still had in my handbag as though I was going to sprint into action as some sort of Bloomsbury St Bernard, ready to offer mountain rescue and sustenance to those in need outside Faber & Faber when they find the Queen's Larder hasn't yet opened.
So this is how I came to be sitting, hung over, doing on-line gambling at 9.30 on a Friday morning with a miniature of brandy in my handbag.
It's all very Raymond Chandler.
All I needed was a cigar and a gun in my pocket.
A nine incher naturally.
