I LEFT it in the lap of the gods whether I got to Dickie’s funeral with the philosophy that if I was meant to get there, I would.

And I did. At 2.02pm to be precise but Dickie, being Dickie had gone into church early because apparently he was never late for anything.

So I stood outside with my brolly trying to listen to the service through the speakers but they were what a professional sound engineer might call, crap.

I thought there would be loads more people there. Maybe the weather put them off because if I hadn’t had a brolly, it would have been a very hard stand outside.

Of all the days when I wanted the four trains and replacement bus to work to plan, they came up trumps.

So I was meant to be there and it really did make me wonder if someone upstairs was manipulating the odds in my favour.

If there was, and they happen to be reading this, thank you.

The reason I set off at 6am to get to the funeral was because I was in Bournemouth for a couple of days.

I was getting an award, hence why I couldn’t duck out of it and I had a joyous time there with a load of romantic novelist friends.

But if my weekend was a juicy apple, a worm in it appeared. In the form of five little words.

A small sentence but one which had the power to fell me. Imagine the scene. I’m heading from the hotel over to a nearby restaurant, walking with a young, fresh Romantasy writer who has struck gold with her first book, so much so that she’s jacked in the day job after that one book to write full-time which is pretty lucky.

And her boyfriend, who is navigating the route via Maps on his phone. Lovely couple. Then we reach the restaurant. And we have to go to the next floor.

And the young writer turns to me and says the five words of doom: ‘Are you okay with stairs?’

My self-perception plunged to hell’s depths in an instant. I saw myself through young-writer’s eyes.

Decrepit, ancient, too old for that red lippy. Readers, let me tell you that I took those stairs like Usain Bolt.

I left a trail of smoke at my heels to show that I wasn’t just capable of them, I ate stairs for fun. I have laughed since about it. But not much!

That is a very good scheme by the council to give a council tax exemption for dying people.

I don’t know why they don’t go a bit further though and give more than the exemption period they do when a parent has died and relatives needs to sell their house.

It was a strain, an extra pressure having a smallish window to sell up when my mum died.

Houses can take so long to shift on the market and yet when the free period was up, I had to pay the FULL council tax for an empty house, even though when mum was alive, she had a single person’s reduced rate and was then using all the services that one pays council tax for. It’s another financial stress you don’t need at a hard time and in my opinion, just flaming greedy.

Tomorrow morning, I’ll be at the Book Vault on Market Street from 9.30-11.30. Just in case you’ve forgotten I’ve got a new book out.

Do come and see me and support a local bookshop, and grab a goody bag with the sale. See you there, I hope.