Today is lovely. It is not a scorcher. Mid 20s. Not over 30 degrees. London is no longer boiling.

Yesterday, I spent the day with Anna by the pool at the Hurlingham Club. I feel like an Aussie when I am near a pool. I was on the committee to refurbish it a few years ago.

selfie in new changing room

The new outdoor pool

Anna was up at the crack of dawn to catch her plane today to Columbia in South America. Geoff drove her to Heathrow. She didn’t look like a young woman of 22 when she kissed me goodbye. She looked like my little girl. The one I used to walk to school, clutching her little hand, with her hair in ribbons. For days I have been thinking of the eighties smash hit Romancing the Stone, with Michael Douglas and Kathleen Turner; they leave the tourist route and end up in hot water. It was their breakaway film. Hopefully Anna won’t be captured by drug barons like them.

The recent weeks, however, with the tragedy of Nice and Instanbul, have shown that nowhere is really 100 percent safe. Everybody senses that.

My last advice to her was not to touch the toilet on the plane. “Use your elbows to open the door,” I instructed. OCD or what! I did remember to say that I loved her.

If you know me well, you know that I have an inbuilt radar to detect if there are celebrities in the vicinity. Yesterday, even though I have not watched an episode of Made in Chelsea, I spied Hugo Taylor by the Hurlingham pool. I knew it was him, as he was in the Australian jungle reality show: I’m a Celebrity Get Me Out of Here. It is shot near Cairns, not far from Port Douglas, where we holidayed with the Potts family in 1995. Anna was a little over one year old.

Ant and Dec, famous double-act hosts, lead the antics, where celebrities are made to eat kangaroo balls and possum’s testes, or be covered in a multitude of insects, in bush tucker trials. The public vote for them to do the bush tucker trials. And they pick on ones that they don’t like or who are a bit pleased with themselves. It is excruciating to watch at times. Many of the celebs are trying to kickstart a dying career. And for many it has worked, like Aussie Peter Andre. The show is broadcast around Christmas time, and I can see the Aussie summer day by day. It cheers me up.

I told Anna that I’d spied Hugo. She told me that he was with his girlfriend who had also been on the show, and that the glamorous woman on the next sun lounger was also on the show.

After cooling down and donning a pretty frock, I headed to the Wolseley in Picadilly. Just next to the Ritz. I adore the architecture in that area: near Bond Street, Burlington Arcade Royal Academy and Buckingham Palace. Mrs California had already arrived, and she was seated with four friends. I was the last. It was wonderful to see my friend, amongst friends. I miss her terribly.

The Wolseley is an all day brasserie serving excellent food, but the interiors are the big draw for me. It was the fictitious Fidelity Fiduciary Bank in Mary Poppins. It has sandstone vaulted ceilings, combined with glossy black lacquer and dazzling gilt detail on the furnishings. It is sumptuous.

Just as we were starting our main course, Mrs California looked up and said, “Oh look, here comes someone famous.” The Wolseley is renowned for its famous clientele. It was her husband, Mr California, our surprise dessert guest. She was teasing us. He squeezed into the middle of the bench. The truth is that they have a lot of exposure to film stars in Los Angeles. They are living the dream.

I swear what happened a split second next is true. I thought silently, “I wonder if there actually is anyone famous here tonight?” Stephen Fry was sitting beside me last time I was there, which is very occasionally.

I looked directly to my right and, with no delay whatsoever, I saw as clear as day Daniel Day Lewis a few tables away. He is such a big star. My heart missed a beat. I love his films. He looked genuinely nice. He was smiling and chatting to his dinner companion. He didn’t seem uptight, worrying that someone, like me, might accost him on the way to the bathroom. I did immediately go to the bathroom to get a better look at him. I am shameless. I admit it.

I like the glass skylight to our basement. It reminds me of a swimming pool

Today, I am doing jobs. The service person is checking that the pumps to the basement are in good order, otherwise we’ll be flooded. That sort of thing. Tonight we are going to The Ivy in Chelsea, with Mr and Mrs Springbok. Before that some tennis. Make hay while the sun shines.