It's Friday, it's five to five, and what better way to kickstart the weekend than by making your friends think you've walked out on your wife and child. Not that Lisa and I are married. I've said I won't set a date until I can find a Vera Wang dress in a charity shop. And Lisa will need something to wear too.

But anyhoo, Lisa's actually spending this weekend at her Mum's. Despite the fact that she'll talk to anyone at a bus stop, and is capable of making lifelong friends in a post office queue, Lisa's worried that her Mum might be lonely. So what better way to help the woman appreciate her circumstances than by forcing her to spend forty-eight hours with Amelie. By Sunday night she'll be praying for solitude.

Lisa and Am left this afternoon, so I got home from work at four-thirty to find the flat empty. Well, empty apart from a suitcase, two bags, and this post-it note...

I'd like to claim that's Amelie's handwriting, but it's not.

So having phoned Lisa and told her I'd be straight up, I put the kettle on, made a cup of tea, changed my clothes, and generally took it easy for twenty minutes, before finally grabbing the luggage and leaving. Naturally my carbon footprint was very much on my mind (as was the fact that I might lose my parking space), so I decided to walk. I'd gone about a hundred yards before I realised it was about to pour with rain and I didn't have a jacket. So as I rounded the corner by the hospital and began the steep climb up the hill, my face, like the sky, had a look of thunder.

All of which made it the perfect time to bump into full-time friends and part-time picnickers, S & A. Seeing me trudging away from my flat with a suitcase and a sad face, they naturally assumed I'd had a row with Lisa and walked out. Five minutes later, I'm still not sure I'd convinced them otherwise. It's not easy explaining your actions when you're too out of breath to talk.

Personally I was more mortified by the fact that having got changed in a hurry, I'd grabbed the same top I wore at the picnic last Sunday. They're going to think I only have one outfit. Mind you, it could have been worse. If they'd seen that my suitcase was full of women's clothes, they'd really have been worried.