This morning, when I arrived back at the Old Rectory, early, I found dead leaves from the beech tree on the drive. In London, which is ahead of the game in its trajectory to autumn, all the plane trees were shedding.

Schools will be back next week. London will be crazy with traffic, both on the roads and otherwise. The footprint will increase exponentially. The tourists will have departed.

Yesterday, I had lunch with Anne at the Bluebird cafe in the sunshine. She is my first friend from Kingsgrove Infants and Primary School, in Sydney, which we attended many moons ago. Too many moons ago to think about!

Her girls were itching to get back to school in London. The holidays are too prolonged, in Britain, over the summer, in my humble opinion. Historically, it was so that the pupils could help bring the harvest in. Now they just start to climb the walls if there isn’t enough to do.

Yesterday, we also went to see The Deep Blue Sea at Curzon Cinema Chelsea. It was a live streamed performance from the National Theatre to 650 cinemas around the UK. It was harrowing. It began with an attempted suicide, and it ended with only a glimmer of hope.

In the short interval, we had a speed dinner. We were with friends from Hurlingham, and we had all brought something to add to the picnic. Salmon and new potatoes, followed by strawberries, meringues and cheese. And wine! I needed the sustenance given the intensity of the performance.

In Anna’s first term at Queen’s Gate school, in 2003, in the lead up to Christmas, she managed to land the part of Nancy in Oliver Twist. She sang As Long as He Needs Me with convincing pathos, despair and hope. I could see people dabbing their eyes as she drew to a close, wrapping her shawl tightly around her for comfort.

The bottom line, let’s not forget, was that Nancy was willing to hang in there with Bill, even though he was a criminal and beat her up from time to time. At the end of the play, off stage, but with shadows cast onto a screen so that we could glimpse the nail biting action, Bill snuffed her out like a candle in the wind. There was thunderous applause.

Mrs Schollenberger was sitting beside me. She encouraged me to enrol Anna at the Sylvia Young Theatre School in Marylebone, North of Oxford Street. Some young hopefuls attend the theatre school full time, juggling academic studies with music and theatre tuition, and if they are lucky, performing in actual productions. Anna enrolled for Saturday mornings.

This meant we had to be up bright and early to trek up to the school, through Hyde Park and onwards north. I didn’t mind, nor did Geoff, as the school was located near Regent’s Park. I would go and have breakfast and read the paper, stroll through the rose garden and think, while Anna sang her heart out.

Many years ago, we went to the Open Air Theatre in the park and watched one of my brother-in-law’s former pupils, then aged nineteen, in a production of Romeo and Juliet. The ex-Harrow student, was Benedict Cumberbatch. He’s come a long way since then. Even then, you could see his star quality.

Before long, Anna insisted on auditioning with the agency attached to the school, as she wanted to try for parts. I thought that it was a long shot, but they took her on.

Today, it is raining. I am almost glad as it means that I won’t have to drag the hose around the garden.