This is the view from our bedroom this morning. It’s called Kelston Roundtop and is near Bath in Somerset. When I was a kid in primary school it was on our blazer badge and I remember walking up there once only to find a few scrubby trees rather than the lush, green clump I’d expected.

We’re staying with my oldest friend, Mel. We lived next door to each other when I was one and she was 4 and have been friends ever since. We’ve been together through mini skirts and broken hearts, marriages, births and deaths. We’ve had cancer scares and a couple of husbands each. Shes the only person in my life who knew my mum, who died when I was 19, and I was with her the night her lovely 4 year old, Stephen, died of a brain tumour. She’s the sort of person that, as soon as you’re with her, you feel better and when you leave, you’re smiling.

She won’t read this because she doesn’t do Facebook.  I might actually have to go and tell her face to face how much she means to me! Bit radical I know but you never know what’s round the corner.