I’m living exciting times at the moment. The response to my free editing offer, which ran throughout September, was excellent, and I’ve got plenty to keep me busy for the next couple of weeks. The down side is while I’ve been concentrating on editing, my blog has become a little neglected, and I intend to rectify that with immediate effect. I remember I promised an account of the Dory’s after-book-launch party (before it becomes nothing more than a dim distant memory), and that will happen; but today I’d like to share the following anecdote.

Editing really suits me, and I am planning to set up my own freelance fiction editing business. As I know absolutely nothing about running my own business, especially an online business, my first port of call was to be a meeting with my bank’s business advisor. I arrived at my bank dead on time for my 3 o’clock appointment, and a member of the counter staff nipped upstairs to the business counter to announce my arrival.

She returned a couple of minutes later looking a little perturbed.

‘Do you have a letter of confirmation?’ she asked.

‘Yes,’ I replied, handing it over and adding that I’d received a reminder text the previous day.

‘That’s odd,’ she said. ‘Our business advisor has no record of your appointment.’

After a second trip upstairs, she returned looking very sheepish.

‘I’m everso sorry,’ she said. ‘There’s been a bit of a mix up…’

My bank has two business advisors with exactly the same name. The confirmation letter stated that I had an appointment with – let’s call him Bobby Bobbins – on 2 October at 3 pm. So far, so good; but had I bothered to read my letter properly, I would have noticed the address at which my appointment was supposed to take place.

One Bobby Bobbins, business advisor, works in Cambridge – University town on the edge of the East Anglian fens.

The other works in Whitehaven, Cumbria – at the other end of the country.

Guess which Bobby Bobbins my appointment was with!