JEFFREY ARCHER

NOVELIST

Exercise sessions completed: 7 Arguments: 0 Health scares: 1 Weight lost: half a stone

Mary and I were at the last public function the Prince of Wales attended before testing positive for coronavirus – a fundraiser for the Australian Bushfires Appeal.

I was three seats to his left, Mary two to his right, and she did remark at the time that he looked a bit red in the face.

When we heard his news, I got a bit worked up about the cough I had had for a few days, but Mary – being a scientist – told me firmly it was the wrong sort of cough.

Our one sadness is that our elder son, William, and his wife are about to have a baby.

They are in London and we are in Cambridge, so it is going to be some time before we get to meet our fourth grandchild.

Mary has been talking to them on her computer screen, too, but I can’t be bothered with Skype. I have my two sessions working on the current draft of my new book each day, punctuated

by the one-hour walk we take together each day as our exercise allowance. I follow political news avidly and Mary reads all the reports on the spread of coronavirus and then explains them to me.

We both have busy lives and so to spend a whole 10 days together on our own is unusual, but it is going well, without either of us turning to drink. For the first time in 54 years, Mary is doing the cooking.

She does seem to have mastered scrambled eggs, but I have lost half a stone already.

Nothing Ventured by Jeffrey Archer is published by Pan (£8.99)