It is still warm, and very dry, here – which makes the title of my story in the current issue of The People’s Friend Special very appropriate.

I love the illustration, especially the inset of Luigi’s restaurant. Luigi is a character from my romantic novel A Year And A Day. He’s a charming and gorgeous Italian who own’s a chain of restaurants. Even though he wasn’t the right man for Stella, I became very fond of him and bring him, or his restaurants, into any stories where a touch of Italian flavour is needed.

The ‘unlikely summer plan’ referred to under the illustration is based on something which happened to me. I refused a date for exactly the reason Becky gives. In my case the person asking never discovered I was telling the truth and he never asked again. I wasn’t a writer back then, but apparently I still seemed like the kind of person who’d make stuff up!