I´m writting this letter in the little A5 notebook I bought in Venice. It has a silky blue hardback cover with marbled pattern, and lovely thick, roughly cut pages. When I´ve finished-if I ever finish-I suppose I could always cut the pages out and put them in a envelope. But there wouldn´t be much point , would there? Anyway, it hasn´t got off to a flying start. Rather self-indulgent so far, I´d say. You´d think I´d know how to write you, after the thousands and thousands of words We´ve written for years. But somehow every new letter to you feels like the first one.

When I sat down on that bench high on the chalk cliffs above Etretat I hadn´t even decided whether it was you I was going to write to you, or Jans. But I chose you. Aren´t you proud of me? You see I´m determined that I´m not going to go down that road.I promised myself that I wouldn´t contact him, and a promise to yourself is the most binding of all.It´s difficult, because there hasn´t beena day for four months when we haven´t spoken or emailed or at least texted. That kind of habits is hard to break. But I know it will get better. This is the cold turkey period.

Looking at my mobile sitting on the table next to the coffee, I feel like an ex-smoker having a packet of fags dangled in front of her nose.It would be so easy to text him. He taught me how to send text menssages, after all. But that would be a crazy thing to do.

He´d hate me for it, anyway. And I´m scared of him starting to hate me-really scared. That scares me more that anything. Silly, isn´t it? what difference does it make, if I´m not going to see him again.

I´ll make a list. Making a list is always a good displacement activity

“Lessons I´ve learned from the Jans disaster:”

1. Married men rarely leaves their wives and daugthers for single women in their late thirties
2. You can´t still be having an affair with someone, even if you´re not having sex
3. ….
I can´t think of a number three. Even so that´s not bad going. Both lessons are important. They´ll stand me in good stead, the next time something like this happens. Or rather they ´ll help me to make sure (I hope) that there won´t be a next time.

Well, that looks good, on paper - especially this expensive thick, creamy, Venetian paper. But I remember a line that your uncle Paul always used to quote me. Some crusty old pillar of the British establishment who said, in his dotage.”Yes -I´ve learned from my mistakes, and I´m sure I could repeat them perfectly”. Ha ha That will probably be me.