Sunday

Up super early to get to Earl's Court to set up our stand for the London Book Fair. During set-up is always a bit of a crazy time - forklift trucks career around the place, burly men screw things into place and more poofy types from marketing (i.e. me) untape boxes and try to build shelves. The place is vast: divided into two enormous buildings, it can feel like an age to walk between stands on opposite sides of the Fair. And we do - we have publishers spread all over this year and they all need their stock delivering and arranging neatly. Susie and I deftly erect five massive posters promoting Marvel comics and we all make a concerted effort not to look out of the big doors as the sun streams in. It must be around 20C today (my first shorts-day of 2010, in fact) and we're all clearly yearning to be in the park.

We eventually have the stand ready by 2pm and go our separate ways. K has, rather wonderfully, prepared the picnic we went shopping for yesterday and we arrange to meet midway between home and Earls Court, at Green Park. The park is busy but, happily, there's still plenty of space to sit and eat our picnic - which is also the perfect way to recover from a sweaty morning of manual work. It becomes a little too hot to sit in the sun for very long so we go for a walk, heading down towards Buckingham Palace where we look at the statue of Victoria before wandering around the lake in St. James' Park. It's the sort of day that has me excited about it being summer again - and only the leafless trees give any clue that this is April 18th rather than some time in August.

We take a seat in the shade for a while before, at around 5, my early start and continued lack of sleep due to coughing fits catches up with me and I feel utterly drained. We hop on the tube and make our way back home for pork chops, Mad Men and the hope of a comfortable night's sleep.