Dry your eyes gentle readers and cease with the rending of the garments.  I know you have been adrift on an ocean on anxiety since Saturday but the delay is due only to an especially demanding week, both socially and professionally and by Saturday morning I couldn’t have written a shopping list, much less a few hundreds words to amuse you.

As you should know by now there are no lengths to which I will not go to excite your (and more importantly my) world weary palate. Step forward my account of a two day lock-in, unfortunately not of the licensed premises variety with which we are all too familiar but with policemen in a car, gilding the lilies that are my driving skills.  A terrifying prospect?  Only for them.

Fortunately the car had darkened windows, the better apparently  to deter stalkers which lowered the risk of me being seen by anyone I knew, primarily other traffic police.  It must be said at the outset that the instructors were sweet – kind, patient and gentle – although with hindsight they may well have been utilising their hostage handling skills as the days wore on.

it quickly became obvious that they needed to spend more time with people other than the criminal classes. By any criteria you care to name a gulf the size of Wales separated us.  When they asked what car I normally drove I replied”Whichever one I won’t have to reverse out of the drive” and they thought I was joking.  It began to dawn on them that this was going to be a long voyage of discovery when they opened the bonnet.  My delight to discover previously overlooked carrier bag space was clearly not the expected response.  Their disappointment in my mechanical prowess was matched by my own when I found that the car’s make-up mirror wasn’t illuminated although I was impressed by the cunning way it could be tilted so that you could observe the car behind.  I may adapt my own vehicles.

Bless them, they thought it was magical that anyone could navigate solely by reference to shops and restaurants- they seemed to find they way round Central London using police stations and pubs, or vice versa.

They were literally staggered when I pulled in at the Savoy just to use the loo.  Like they have good hand cream at MacDonalds now?  As we swung past Harvey Nicks for the third time – not lost, officer, just trying to clock all the window displays – they asked me where one could park nearby?  Doh!  On those handy yellow parking guidelines obviously.

Their iron self control only came near to cracking as we drove past the Priory, the lunatic asylum to the stars. “Ever been there?” asked PC Jolly nervously, clearly expecting the answer to be in the affirmative. “Dozens of times” I replied before adding in a rare moment of compassion “But only visiting friends”.

We popped into Scotland Yard, probably so that they could collect tranquilliser darts but I wouldn’t recommend a visit.  There’s not even a gift shop.