I am frantic today, as we go to Italy later: Naples, Positano and Ischia, an island, on the Amalfi coast. I have to drop Domino off at the Whippet Hotel near Gatwick on the way to the airport. I loathe leaving the children, and Domino, and going abroad. The idea that there is a sea separating us; I would need to catch a plane to reach them if there was an emergency.

I usually send Nicky Barber last minute instructions should anything go awry. She is my deputy after Geoff, and he will be with me. And then as soon as I reach the foreign destination, I finally relax.

Yesterday, I went to the sale at a friend’s house in Haslemere in aid of a local home for autistic adults: The Simon Trust. I bought some baby kit and next year’s diary. I bumped into a friend of Geoff’s that I had not seen since his fortieth birthday at Stone House, his childhood home in Kent, twenty three years ago. For reasons I can’t remember, we lost touch. I never forget a face.

Unlike many people you don’t see for decades, she hadn’t changed. I asked how her husband was. “He died sometime ago,” she replied. I had a shot of that unease you experience when you have put your foot in it. Words do nothing to alleviate the situation; all you can say is that you are sorry. I asked after her boys. They were men now.

Visiting Australia regularly over the years, I observed my brother’s boys, Ryan and Jonah, change gradually: a bit taller, a bit more mature, each time. However, twice, I have arrived to find that they have been swapped for grown men that they resemble!

It was a shock, earlier this year, to see Jonah. He had become a chiselled, handsome young man. Today is his eighteen birthday. Soon it will be Hugo’s 21st. Hugo never had a suddden burst of maturity. He ripened slowly and constantly like Neapolitan tomatoes.

Jonah is just about to finish school, and he has a couple more exams to face before he is free for a gap year, before starting Uni.

I took Domino for an early walk today, and memories of my years at Kingsgrove High School, a middle class state school in the southern suburbs, came flooding back. I was considered to be a goodie goodie. I was hardworking and responsible most of the time, but I had the naughty Potts streak from my father, Stan the Man, that would appear occasionally.

I remember being in Biology class when I was sixteen. My teacher was not beautiful, but she was shapely like Sophia Loren, who was born in Naples. She knew she had sex appeal. She would stride around with her ample bosoms on display and point at the blackboard with a wooden stick to reinforce her dialogue, and at the same time, she would stick her chest out to be admired.

During this particular lesson, she was relaying the facts about the reproduction of frogs to a mixed bunch of us. She had been my Biology teacher since I began High School, at the age of twelve, so I had been in her classroom many, many times. She had watched the boys and girls in the class go through puberty and beyond.

I was sitting on a stool behind a laboratory desk. It was at the height of summer. I remember my legs were tanned against the sky blue of my short school uniform. I was watching Ms Biology, and I could feel the silent giggles starting to erupt like Mount Vesuvius, that towers over the Amalfi coast. The more I tried to stop them erupting and making a sound, the more they welled up. I finally blew; I was  convulsed with laughter.

At first Ms Biology ignored me, but soon I was laughing so hard that I fell off my chair. I had tears pouring down my cheeks. It was a combination of being in a mixed group of teenagers with hormones raging, the talk of reproduction and Ms Biology’s provocative display of her ample bosoms.

She eventually sent me out of the classrom to stand outside in the hall yelling, “Miss Potts, will you please compose yourself?” I was still laughing out there. I would almost get the giggles under control, and then they would erupt again. After class, she came to speak to me. She didn’t reprimand me at all. She just smiled and told me to go to lunch. Maybe she knew what I found funny.

Have you ever had the urge to laugh when someone tells you really tragic news? What is that? You feel the edges of your mouth curl up in a smile. Is it embarrassment? Is it an involuntary defence mechanism to suffering? Thankfully, I had no urge to laugh when I met Geoff’s friend at the sale, and she told me her sad news.