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The day before yesterday I decided that I would outlive my dog. I owe him that. Two days later, in other words today, I decided to drink a glass of red wine in Wheddon Cross.

That is how I intend to pass the time from now on. Make decisions, and stick to them. It’s not all that difficult, but harder than it sounds, and, of course, everything depends on the circumstances.

The rain had followed me all the way across the moor, ever since I turned off the A358 at Bishops Lydeard, and as dusk set in quickly it made tears well up in my eyes like cold lava. A falling movement, then a rising one; but those tears that were forming were perhaps a good sign. I have wept too seldom in my life — I’ll come back to that.

I had set off from London at about one, and after I had wriggled my way out through Notting Hill and Hammersmith the journey had exceeded my expectations. Driving westwards along the M4, through Hampshire, Gloucestershire and Wiltshire — at least, that’s what I think the counties are called — and a few hours later southwards along the M5 after Bristol. It feels reassuring that all these roads have a number — and all the places a name — but the fact that it feels like that is less reassuring.

Exceeded my expectations may well also be the wrong expression to use in the context, but my apprehensions about getting lost, taking the wrong turning and ending up in endless traffic jams on the motorway heading in the wrong direction, and not arriving on time, had kept me awake for a large part of the night. The rest of the night it was the old story about Martin’s sister’s lover that kept me going. I don’t know why he and she turned up in my thoughts, but they did. One is so defenceless in the early hours of the morning.

I’m not used to driving, thanks to the way things turned out. I remember that when I was young I used to think that it gave me a sense of freedom, sitting behind the wheel and being master — or rather mistress — of my fate and the routes I chose. But it has been Martin who has done all the driving for the last fifteen or twenty years: it’s a long time since we even raised the question of who was going to sit in the driving seat when we went on our joint car trips. And he has always turned his nose up at anything to do with GPS.

There are such things as maps, aren’t there? What’s wrong with good old maps all of a sudden?