I woke this morning to an email from the talented and charming Britt Leveridge with the chair she has drawn for my cover. I asked for a small change, and she came back within half an hour. Hasn’t she done a marvelous job?

The house is ‘A view of King’s Weston House, in the snow’, photographed by Stephen Burns and released into the public domain by the copyright holder on 5 February 2009.