After years of queuing up to attend one book event after another, not to mention helping Judith Barrow to run the Narberth Book Fair, 2020 crashed into the barriers, everything was cancelled – no book fairs, no signings, not real-life book launches. A chance for me to discover just how much I miss proper contact with readers.

But this too shall pass. There is light at the end of the tunnel, hope springing eternal and all manner of other clichés, because writers can’t be kept down forever. Crime Cymru, of which I am a member, is triumphantly planning a major new international crime writing festival for Wales, Gŵyl Crime Cymru Festival, to be held in sea-side Aberystwyth (easily accessible by road, rail, hot-air balloon and intergalactic wormholes) in 2022, featuring such writers as Ann Cleeves, Peter James, Clare Mackintosh and Mark Billingham.

But meanwhile, rather than wait…