Well here we are then… Flat is strangely quiet, but that could be because The Cat is asleep and no longer throwing herself at windows with gay abandon in attempts to catch flies. No, the flat is quiet because I am all alone while Ludivine has gone off to Thailand for three weeks.

Of course, last night I had a weird thought: she hasn’t gone to Thailand at all. All this is an elaborate pretense, organised with Magali’s complicity [perhaps even at her instigation], and Ludivine will sudenly appear again like at eleven, possibly with magali in tow to act as a witness, expecting to catch me on the hop with all sorts of wicked sexy creatures. Far from this. In fact, at eleven I was mopping up the kitchen in my underpants as the bodum exploded when I pushed the plunger down to filter the coffee. Greasy coffee grounds dripped down the walls, water bubbled over the heating plate and through the cracks onto the shelves below, gradually puddling around my bare feet. I didn’t even have the presence of mind to grab the leaking remains and dump them in the sink. Instead, I’m grabbing tea towels and dish clothes and trying to damn the brown rivers flooding over the kitchen top. I suppose that I wasn’t too awake. And having coffee pots explode isn’t really an everyday occurrence so I wasn’t prepared for it. I’ll know for next time, anyway.

So Ludivine is in Thailand. I mean, do people really go to places like Thailand? How can you even be sure that such a place exists, and is not just some elaborate fiction? [This sort of ties into a childhood fancy that places didn’t exist until you visited them, and even then they were hastily built up in preparation for your arrival. I think that I grew out of this around the age of eleven, but somehow, deep down, it seems to touch something and the idea is always hovering about below the surface. Especially when people are trying to persuade you to go to strange exotic places. And this would explain why all these places look different: they use local labour.]

Of course, it didn’t help to borrow Bridget Jones – The Edge of Reason from the local library yesterday and have to read her adventures in Thailand. Ludivine, if you’re reading this: do not touch the local produce, lay off all offers of magic mushrooms. And especially beware of all sexy Harrison Ford look-alikes. Even if they are not international drug dealers. Although that is a good enough reason in itself.

Stop press: mail arrived. Ludivine arrived safely. And now I know something else about Thailand: the keyboards don’t have accents. In fact, they don’t seem to have apostrophes either. The mail looked a bit like a text message sent with all thumbs from a mobile phone. But the essential was understandable. She’s in Thailand, in the rainy season. Hmm. Like Bridget Jones that.