Yesterday I awoke to find, in the pile of letters on my bedside cabinet, a letter written in some foreign script. My first thought was that I’d somehow, overnight, forgotten how to read. I went downstairs and asked Steve if he could read this alien handwriting. He couldn’t, so all was forgotten until later in the day when he asked Claire if she knew anything about it.

It turns out that Claire had been cleaning in the bathroom during the week and had found the letter behind the toilet. Not recognising the writing she assumed (and this is absolutely true) that someone had been writing in tongues. Her next question was: ‘who in this household would try writing in tongues?’ And came to the conclusion that it must have been me.

Now she assumed that I would be embarrassed if she let on that she had found my ‘experiment’ and decided to sneak the letter into my bedroom so as not to raise any suspicion.

This year is going to be fun…