Recently I have become computerised. About three weeks ago I became the proud owner of a ‘system’. This is a proper system, not my ‘write it on a bit of paper and hope I find it again’ system of picture management. I now know what I’ve got, what size it is, if it is framed, mounted or just paper, if it is with a gallery, due home from a gallery, or, best of all, sold. I know what greetings cards are selling and which are not, what needs invoicing, who’s paid and who hasn’t. In short, I have all the answers.

The reason for this is nothing to do with me really. I like computers, I really do, but I am small child to their efficiency. It all goes well as long as I get exactly what I want exactly when I want it. Ten seconds with no gratification and I am thumping on the keys and shouting unreasonably. I’ve been known to cry and I do put sticky finger prints and toast crumbs all over my laptop’s nice black coat. No, this is to do with my brother-in-law for whom computers are more like intellectual friends: good company to an all night session of thrashing out complex algorithms. He decided that he would write a programme which would ensure that I would have more time to make lush puddings for the writer of that programme. A win,win for us both. So far he’s had homemade vanilla ice cream with a rum baba strong enough for a bona fide hangover. This weekend it’s the turn of Anton Mosimann’s killer bread and butter pudding.

To be slightly earnest about this, I have had to take things in hand a bit. It’s part of the big new plan to take myself seriously. No longer just a dabbler in a shed, I am a woman running a business. Admittedly a business which can involve some pretty strange stuff, but a small business nevertheless and having proper delivery notes, invoices and accountability does all make sense and the right impression on galleries, the tax man and my clients. I do know how extraordinarily lucky I am to have a relation with a fondness for programming and a weakness for patisserie, but it really had to be done one way or another and best to do it now when things are still small and beautiful rather than big and out of hand.