I was meant to send this last week, but then night melted into morning, morning melted into afternoon, afternoon spread out into something bright and warm and I was tasked by the man landscaping our garden to put the plants I’d saved where I wanted them, and, with the baby strapped to my chest and snoring like a far larger creature, I decided that was a better use of my time instead. Forgive me: these are strange days, which manage to be unique and cyclical all at once. Order will resume and with it regular letters. Until then, I’m savouring the small moments that tiptoe into the hours in between.

I suppose it started about three years ago, once the immediate panic of the pandemic had subsided and settled into something deeper and longer-tailed; around the time that everyone started making banana bread and the spring burnished. We were newly at home annd our indulgences became more domestic. We started to make elaborate lunches because food and mealtimes become a rare and elusive marker of time.

Gradually, many of us filtered back into the offices we used to occupy and into something resembling our old routines. We stopped making a semblance of the Pret cookie at home and bought one from the same branch we used to go to instead. I did this too: for two days a week, I would work in the office rather than at home, and these days would become a kind of tiny bacchanal. Pastries for breakfast, lunch made into a social event, some kind of sugar hit mid-afternoon.

But lunch transformed into its own thing at home. Years on and I can’t shake the habit of making a little meal out of it all. Why have a sandwich when you could pour thick, smoky tahini out of a pint-sized plastic tub and stir it with water and lemon juice until it becomes just the right kind of runny? Why not boil an egg with half an eye on the clock purely for the satisfaction of watching a warm yolk pool over toast? A remnants-of-the-fridge minestrone; a carbonara laden with flakes of parmesan just for one; pulling together leftovers on one of the nice plates and filling a good, large bowl with leaves to sitting down to entertain yourself with.

I never make fancy food, but I do believe in the merits of making ordinary food a little fancy. Light a candle on a Tuesday evening. Set the table before you sit down. Serve things up in bashed-up enamel dishes with tongs that boast good hand-feel and pretend you’re at your own little restaurant. Put a piece of fruit on a small plate with a little bone-handled knife and pretend its desert course. Peel the satsuma all in one, snaking coil. Grab a handful of parsley or mint or chives or dill or all of them together, and chop it roughly, and scatter it on top of eggs. Throw some sesame seeds on something. Give yourself a hit of flavour or crunch. See, isn’t that better?

When I moved from newspapers - where I spent most of my career - to publishing a few years ago, I did so into an industry where lunch breaks were observed with such casual commitment that I began to forget I’d spent the past decade shoving food into my mouth over my keyboard between deadlines and emails. Suddenly I was in a workspace where lunch was taken away from the desk anywhere between 12pm and 2.30pm, and nobody really asked where you were or how long you’d be gone. A full proper meal could be consumed, alongside proper conversations. Sometimes I’d take them alone and pop into a gallery or walk along the river. It was here that I’d be able to find some space for a new idea or unlock a tussle I’d been having with a piece. I learned that lunch breaks aren’t so much indulgent as necessary in carving out time in the day, working or otherwise.

The work I do now is different. Some words, many thoughts, but mostly these drift among a telescoping day made of three-hour cycles. C tends to eat at 1pm, and sometimes I do too, trying (often failing) not to drop crumbs into his ear or the folds of his neck. It is easy to lose grip on this slippery time. Making a fuss of lunch - perhaps roasting some carrots, or slicing doorsteps of the bread we have achieved during our morning outing, or levering out a chunk of grapefruit with a serrated spoon - has taken on a new weight: a means of grounding and a sense of normality, just for a few minutes.

Vote for Why Women Grow

The deadline to vote for Why Women Grow in The People’s Book Prize is this coming Sunday. If you’ve read the book, and would like to vouch for it, it would mean so much if you could vote. Thankyou!