I spend very little time, both in London and in Kent, in our sitting rooms. I spend most of my home time in the kitchen or in bed. I am sure I am missing out on something important but I find it difficult to work out precisely what it is.

We’re involved in some expensive new projects and we have taken on expensive new staff. If we fail there will be plenty of people queuing up to criticise, if not to gloat. If we succeed it won’t even be noticed: it will be taken for granted or presumed to be due to luck. Taking risks is the basis of all private enterprise. Obviously one judges the level of risk against the potential return and the potential negative effect of doing nothing. At the time of actually making a crucial decision after doing all the preparatory assessment, however, one simply has to take a punt.

A couple of months ago – or more, I don’t remember – I had a dream. It was enchanting. In the morning I wrote it out and sent the document to my literary agent as the basis for a children’s book. She was unimpressed, saying that it is very much a specialised field. I was disappointed but did nothing more about it – until today. This afternoon I got out the original half-paged description of the dream, lay in my hammock and started to dictate. Six hours later, with one break for a walk and another for supper, the book was finished. As with the dream, the characters and the story just appeared in my head as I went along. There was no synopsis, no plan, no development, and no notes. It came out of the sky and went straight into the dictaphone. It felt natural.

What matters is not how it was produced but whether children like it. I’ll find out first and then send it back to my agent to see what she says. If the children like it and she doesn’t, I’ll publish it myself, vanity or not.

Meg gets a dreadful reaction to flea bites. Cat and cat are therefore banned from all rooms in the cottage except the kitchen. They have the run of the garage building where Meg has her own area where she plays her piano, works at her desk or sits on the sofa looking out onto the orchard. It’s her special place and therefore cat and cat have to be there, otherwise it wouldn’t be special. She covers the sofas in metallic-lined fire blankets. Cat and cat don’t seem to mind that but they often prefer to sit on her lap, which is protected by a plastic apron. It makes it a bit tricky, practicing the Dvorak and Elgar piano quintets with two cats jockying for position but, with Phoebe the undisputed owner of the bean-bag, all is well in Meg’s world: three four-legged, the one two-legged (her husband is not banned but is generally at work in the Recovery Centre or asleep or reading or writing in the cottage or in his hammock) and there is no way for the six-legged to get at her.

I do like the new uniforms for the nurses and health care assistants. They look very smart. The inspector from the Healthcare Commission was concerned that uniforms separate the staff from the patients. For heaven’s sake, that’s exactly what I want to achieve.

I have second thoughts all the time – and third and fourth – because sometimes my first thoughts are wrong or, at the very least, they can be improved.

I know how to work hard and play hard but I also know how to rest. I don’t try to make artificial boundaries between work and home. That can’t happen if one is always on call. I don’t go away on holiday. That would be far too tiring. I just spend time with Meg. We may be in different rooms but I know that she is there and that’s nice. I rest content.

I saw a bullfinch yesterday. They’re fairly common but for some reason I haven’t seen one for some time. I suppose I shouldn’t be pleased to see one now because he will soon be pecking the heart out of the buds on the fruit trees. But I can always buy fruit in the shops and I am happy to plant fruit trees just to attract the birds. However, we need to put up a notice: “Beware of cat (and cat)”.

A recent newspaper article likened me to St. John the Baptist. Certainly I have been a voice crying in the wilderness at times so I’ll settle for that, although I anticipate a lot of teasing. However, there are two things that slightly perturb me. First, I hope that other newspapers don’t dig too deep to prove to their competitor that I am in fact a sinner. All addicts have a murky past. Mine wasn’t particularly florid but I should rather not have all that stuff paraded in public twenty one years and more after the event. But what will be will be. Second, if I am St. John the Baptist, what does that say about Robin, the one who cometh after me? That’s quite a cross for him to carry.

Twelve Labour, twelve Conservatives and eight Liberal Democrat voters from the last general election, but who had voted differently on previous occasions, were asked in a television programme to comment on footage on three party leaders. Almost universally they liked what Tony Blair had said but didn’t trust him and they believe he had been in power for too long. They were impressed by David Cameron but unimpressed by Sir Menzies Campbell. The Labour leader-in waiting, Gordon Brown, received warm support for his management of the economy.

In truth he has wrecked it. Smoke and mirrors, the conjurer’s props, are his stock and trade. Presentation and reality are two entirely different things. The frightening thing is that floating voters determine the results of elections. We really are heading for trouble. I wonder how much more damage Gordon Brown has to cause before he is rumbled. Or maybe that isn’t the way it works. Perhaps floating voters want government and party leaders to float, to be changed periodically regardless of policy.