Real life | 2 February 2017

As if by magic, a sign that I am doing the right thing by moving out of London arrived in the post.

And not a moment too soon, for with all the to-ing and fro-ing over arcane anomalies in the floorplan of my flat I had become so heartily sick of the conveyancing process I was almost ready to jack the whole move in.

Two identical, suspiciously thin and official-looking A5 sized envelopes arrived at the same time. This is either the Inland Revenue telling me I am going to jail for believing that half-asleep guy at their call centre who told me I shouldn’t worry too much about my tax bill, or it is something even worse, I told myself, fingering the envelopes gingerly.

I ripped one open without further ado and a letter from Transport for London came out. It featured the usual photo of my Volvo doing something it shouldn’t.

The last one was only a few months ago, and pictured Vernon — for that is the Volvo’s pet name — looking shifty in an unlit yellow box junction in Raynes Park. That’ll be £65 please, the TfL letter declared on that occasion. I tried to blame the builder boyfriend because I had only been in the box junction at all after he insisted I swing by his builder’s yard and pick him up.

After a long dispute as to where moral responsibility for the fine truly lay, with the picker upper or the pick-up-ee, we decided to split the fine two ways. And they say romance is dead.

This time, I was on firmer ground. The picture showed a shifty-looking Vernon skulking in Elsynge Road in Wandsworth on a red route.

‘Ha! I knew it!’ I screeched. If I peered at it really closely I could just make out the builder b in the picture, standing in the gutter behind the opened passenger door.