"So, it's getting pretty drastic. I Basically need him to come home immediately."

Over a cup of tea, a colleague and I were stealing a few rare moments from the blurry haze of mania that has been our office of late. It was towards the end of a week during which The Writer had been in the Middle East on a press trip, leaving me at home, alone and left entirely to my own devices.

You would think that, as a grown woman in possession of all her faculties (most of the time), this wouldn't be too much of an issue. That I could be trusted. After all, it wasn't so long ago that, for a number of years, the household was just me and the cat, and I managed not to get scurvy, or (bar the odd houseplant) kill anyone.

You'd think then, that it wouldn't be such an issue to spend a week unsupervised. That maybe I'd use the time to catch up on reading, tidy up, have an early night or two. Basically act like a mature adult.

But it turned out that on the first day of his absence, by the time I'd read the paper, tidied up, and done a bit of washing, I was entirely disinclined to do anything else of worth, and spent the evening catching up on the sort of excellent telly that normally incites TW's acerbic commentary, in the company of a particularly delicious fish finger sandwich.

Which was essentially a blueprint for how I spent the next six days.

When I wasn't at work (which was quite a lot of the time), I was at home in pyjamas and a pair of slippers that TW takes particular exception to, watching Grey's Anatomy, or Fortitude, or Poldark, eating fish finger sandwiches. One particularly memorable evening, a couple of colleagues and I sank a few gins and tonic in the pub near the office and I went home to a supper of wedding cake. Just cake. With a healthy layer of icing. Then went straight to bed. Rock AND roll.

"God, I'm exactly the same," my colleague said, as I confessed to her that I was afraid that if TW didn't return soon, I might never eat a vegetable again, and be found dead in pom-pom slippers under a layer of old Tatlers. "When my husband goes away, I basically go feral."

Reassuringly, she told tales of eating cereal for three meals a day, not getting out of bed in the morning until the last possible second and generally indulging in behaviour that is best kept to oneself. It's good to know I'm not alone in these matters.

Better still that TW came back safe and sound from his trip, and I'm now not alone full stop, really.