“You’re trying to find the blue dot”

I’M ON my way back to London from Suffolk with two old nursing friends.

This morning, after the night before — which was marked by high spirits, dancing and the like — we are all a bit delicate.

Vanessa is behind the wheel, equipped with fags, iPhone and funny wires hanging out of her ears. Liz, whose technological accoutrements include an iPhone and an iPad, with built-in GPS technology, is in charge of finding the route. They’ve obviously decided by some discreet consensus, that I am to have nothing to do with navigation, for I’ve been dispatched to the back seat, where I sit with suitcases, a mild headache and, unaccountably, many flies.