HOW LATE?

The table was booked for 12 o'clock. I was a solitary drinker until the others turned up at 12.35 after some strange behaviour by one of them (would you take the dog for a walk taking no phone, watch or house keys, and then disappear shortly before you're due to leave with your husband to pick up his colleague on the way to treat her and another freelance colleague - me - to a festive get-together meal?). Anyway, once all had been rectified, and ignoring any marital undercurrents, we had a very pleasant lunch. My colleague and friend Carole is leaving the publication and I wondered whether that would mean that R, the publisher, would be selling up and I'd be out of a job, but he assures me that he's planning to carry on for the foreseeable future with just him and me so thoughts of full retirement are back on hold.