It was like Cornish pasties. Or sausage rolls. They’d been overcooked. They had too much fat. You know? The ones with that fatty pastry – the sort you get from Greggs. The smell is at once disgusting and appetising – but, maybe not at half past eleven at night. Not when you didn’t cook them. Not when the smell fills your bedroom like someone had been cooking them in that room. Not when it wakes you up.

But let’s go back a bit.

F is in Germany. I took him to the airport on Monday morning. I don’t mind doing that but it does mean getting up a little earlier. Therefore, Monday, I was tired. I also had clients in at work.

After my lesson, I spoke to F by phone. Then I took the dogs out for their walk. It was 9.30. By 10, I was in bed. Since I had been so tired all day and evening, I thought sleep would come immediately. But the bastard ran away and wouldn’t come back.

Added to which, my hips hurt like hell. They normally hurt if I have been wearing particularly tight jeans. Now that I am the size of a small elephant, all my jeans are that little bit tighter.

So, what with the pain and the not wanting to sleep, I couldn’t. And my teeth hurt a bit because I have been clenching and grinding them again.

Eventually, I got up and took some nurofen. Eventually, I guess, I fell asleep.

The smell filled the bedroom. As it is, again, quite warm, all windows are open. The smell was coming from one of the other flats – also with it’s windows open. The smell seemed to get stronger. I got up. The smell was throughout the flat. I hated it. It won’t let me sleep but what can I do?

I walk around spraying airfreshner in every room. This almost masks the smell but not quite. I look out of my window – as if I can tell where the smell was coming from (which was a stupid idea); as if, having worked out where the smell was coming from, I could do anything about it (I wouldn’t).

I like living in a flat. I miss having a garden but am grateful for not having a garden and having to spend every weekend keeping it from becoming an unruly jungle. All things have good and bad points.

I hate that I am too close to people. I hate when I don’t like their cooking.

I don’t like this cooking.

I go back to bed, smelling the smell and hating it. I guess I must have dropped off to sleep again.

At 5.40 in the morning I could not smell it.

But, maybe, I was used to it?