The pensioner at the till was agog. Could it really be true that the Queen would put in an appearance later in the day? What on earth was she doing in a tea shop in St Ives? Yes, came the explanation, so long as the Queen was not feeling too tired, she would come downstairs and meet her subjects. The catch was that the tea shop staff were talking about the Pearly Queen, not HRH Queen Elizabeth II. They didn’t let on. Meanwhile LM, rewriting her conference paper at a table by herself, paid little attention to this conversation.

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My sister S and I tackled the fridge. Just how many forms could rice take? We threw out a rice ring preserved in aspic, a solidified rice pudding, and a wilted rice salad. The Thai chicken curry looked edible so we ate that cold. It was actually quite nice – until we reached the foil-wrapped scalpels at the bottom of our bowls.

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Many of the reading rooms in New York public library were closed due to the flooding. As I descended the stairs I passed a number of young men who defied gravity by travelling on snowboards in the opposite direction. As they whooshed past me I thought “I want to learn how to do that!”