By the end of the afternoon, you have quaffed eight cups of tea, scoffed six slabs of cake, made a sudden dash to clean the bathroom sink, satisfied an irrepressible need to put on two loads of laundry, taken a stroll around the garden, clipped your toenails, descaled the iron, answered an urgent call from Son who doesn’t know where his jeans are, been strong-armed by the cats to crack open a packet of Dreamies… and read two pages of Ulysses.