“Are you sitting down?” I exclaim.  “His grandmother taught me and everyone else I know the piano til we were twelve! She had blue hair!”

This is the result of my meeting with the MD of the Dating/Events company who’s asked me to speak at her ‘Author’s Talk’ in September.  She appears to be more interested in matchmaking me than in my books which she hasn’t read.

She’d given me his name, and original family name, so obviously I stalked him on Google the minute she was out of the door, and top of the entries was an article he’d written in the Scottish Daily Mail about his famous composer grandfather, married to my ex-piano teacher.

She says he’s brainy and quirky – well I love all that; and shoots, so he understands my world.

I told her I’d give her a million quid if she found me the man of my dreams. But since then I’ve reduced my offer to a grand, as I don’t actually have a million.  And now I’m worrying about how and when you can actually tell that this is finally ‘the one’.  Perhaps there should be a scale of charges.  Maybe thirty quid if you find yourself sharing a thoroughly enjoyable, stimulating meal together, that gets you all excited.  A hundred quid if you sleep with them; three hundred if you’re still with them after three months; and a thousand if you marry them.

Meanwhile the 6′ willowy blonde vision of loveliness that comprises Nell, the agency owner, explains that the Author’s Evening will probably comprise only around eight people sitting in a circle in a very relaxed way, and I won’t need to have prepared a talk or anything. God – I could actually look forward to this. Two hours of talking about myself without stopping, to a rapt audience! Lovely jubbly!