The day started normally enough: a quick flick through the news, in the forlorn hope of finding something cheerful, radio tuned to the concert programme, crossword in hand, tea at the elbow, God’s in his heaven and all that stuff. But then the phone rings. ‘We’d like to go for a bike ride, are you OK with the kids for a couple of hours?’ ‘Of course!’ I reply and twenty minutes later Mozart has descended into redundancy and the crossword rendered unsolvable.