Martin Harbottle's Appreciation of Time by Dominic Utton

and so subsequently late leaving the station again. I hope this helps ease your frustration a little.
    To answer some of your other questions, yes, I have two children, both (thankfully!) grown up and at university now. I well remember the sleepless nights and endless nappy changes though!
    Although I wouldn’t claim to be any kind of expert on postnatal depression, I can tell you that after the birth of our first, my wife found the support of friends with babies who were in a similar position to hers to be very helpful. Perhaps your GP might be able to put her in touch with other new mothers?
    I am also sorry to hear about the situation at your work. I must admit, to the casual observer, it does seem that certain sections of the press have overstepped the mark on occasion. It’s interesting to learn of the crooner in question’s colourful love life, however! Has this been reported?!
    Best
    Martin
‌ Letter 12
    From: [email protected]
    To: [email protected]
    Re: 21.48 Premier Westward Railways train from London Paddington to Oxford, July 7. Amount of my day wasted: 11 minutes. Fellow sufferers: Corporate Dungeon Master.
    Martin: it’s been a week. No delays for a week. Well done! Outstanding work.
    Thank you for your last letter – advice taken on board. Beth saw the doctor this week: she’s got a flyer for some baby groups, some coffee mornings and whatnots. She thinks it’s all a bit pointless, but like I told her: that’s just the depression talking, right? (She didn’t think that was very funny. Mental note: don’t bother with the black humour and can the dark wit when you’re dealing with a postnatally depressed woman. It’s really not worth the tears and the apologies.)
    Anyway, ta for the advice. We’ll see if it perks her up any. Though between you and me, if the baby’s making her depressed, I’m not sure that going someplace where there’s going to be lots more babies is really going to help. If my dog was making me depressed (I don’t own a dog, it’s another metaphor. The dog is a metaphor for my baby. But not in a bad way, obviously. I’m not comparing my baby to a dog! What kind of monster do you think I am?) – if my dog was making me depressed, you wouldn’t advise me to hang out at a dog show, would you?
    If, say, sitting on trains was making me depressed (which, to be honest, it is), then you wouldn’t recommend I catch more trains, would you? Would you? Actually, perhaps you would. Perhaps I’m asking the wrong man on that one.
    Anyway. She’s going to take little Sylvie to a baby group today. There’s another tomorrow. We’ll see if sharing the pain helps.
    But enough about me. It’s a bog-standard-length delay today – and what with the only other evening regular being Corporate Dungeon Master tonight (mid-forties, pin-stripes, thinning hair slicked back, actual briefcase containing immensely powerful-looking laptop on which he plays role-playing games all the way home; from what I can gather, surreptitiously glancing over the aisle or at the reflection in the window in front, his character would appear to be a barbarian wizard. I’m not entirely certain, but I think the game’s called Ragnarok. Either way, I’m not sure how much he actually enjoys it as every journey seems to involve a steady stream of swearing at the other characters on his screen, all those little bare-chested, weapon-wielding avatars running around like headless chickens) – what with it just being me and Corporate Dungeon Master on the train tonight, I’ll cut straight to the chase.
    You asked me about our litigation-happy singing friend. The crooner and Blue-Mooner. The one with the spectacular syrup and the girl-next-door girlfriend (although they haven’t actually had sex in years, take it from me – theirs is a union based on mutually beneficial publicity alone. Love has nothing to do with it). The one with the one massive song two decades ago and that other massive song