Barbecue weather and Pimm’s and Anna Karenina are doing little to dissipate the heaviness in my bones. This year I’ve been so good at categorising everything and burying my head in textbooks instead of confronting things that really needed to be confronted - and now that’s gone, and I have no excuse to pretend, and the only person in the world who is always on my side is going to America for two weeks, and I’m more afraid than I’ve ever been before.