It is clear blue sky this morning. The sun is holding on to its hat.

I was glad to wake up this morning. I had a vivid dream last night that made me restless.

We were driving past a beach in Britain. Geoff stopped the car to take in the view. I was pleasantly surprised to see that the waves were breaking, and they were crystal clear. I ran away from the car, even though Geoff was calling me to come back. I just couldn’t resist those Australian-like waves. He remained in the car with Anna and Hugo.

All of a sudden, the sea started to recede very quickly and for a long way. Eureka. I remembered that this is what happens in tsunamis. The water was now rushing in like a wall. I couldn’t make it back to the car, so I ran to a building nearby as fast as I could and climbed six flights of stairs to the top floor.

Very conveniently when I opened a rear door on the top floor, there was safe, dry land, on a hill. There were parents everywhere gripping their children.

I had that desperate, sinking feeling that Geoff had not been able to drive the children to safety.

Anguish engulfed me for a few minutes, and then I saw the car appear. Geoff was there with Hugo. But I could not see Anna. Had I lost one child? But then she slowly emerged from the car. She had hurt her leg, but she was alive and well.

Relief washed over me like a warm blanket. And then I woke up.

In the summer before Hugo went to boarding school in 2009, we decided to use our Singapore Airlines airmiles, about to expire, and go to Phuket and to a small island resort, on Koh Racha, that some friends had raved about. Instead of the usual Mediterranean holiday, we headed much further east. It was the rainy season, but it was guaranteed to be warm. It had been hit badly by the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami.

It was the time of the bird flu epidemic. I didn’t feel well on the flight, and when I arrived I had a temperature. Would I be quarantined? They had heat sensors in Singapore. Luckily, I made it through. It took five days and strong medication to get back to normal.

The Racha resort was stellar. Modern, sleek Asian decor. The children had the time of their lives. There were not many guests so the staff spoilt them rotten, supplying them with endless virgin cocktails in the pool. I had to stay in the room for the first couple of days as I was ill.

When we went for the second week to Phuket mainland, Geoff picked up a newspaper and gasped. Whilst we had been on the island there had been a murder. One of the male staff had become insanely jealous when his female lover went off with another man, and he promptly stabbed her to death. We worked out that this had taken place while I lay eating chicken broth in a remote villa, while Geoff and the children were at dinner on the sea front. There had been a high speed sea chase and police had combed the island on foot to track down the killer. They hadn’t caught him. He had jumped from a cliff to his death.

What if on this wild chase, he had seen my light on and knocked on the door? The island was tiny. The only inhabitants were associated with the resort: guests and staff.

I was quite glad to get home to Chelsea!

Today, I have lunch in Sloane Square with Mrs Springbok. She can tell me about the sun and sea she’s just left in Plettenberg Bay, on the Garden Route in South Africa.