After five goes, Eva eventually answers her phone to me. Yes, she did see Sam at the weekend, she reluctantly admits, but before I get a chance to launch into further in-depth questioning, on cue, one of her babies starts squealing in her ear so she just does that thing you can only get away with if you’re a mum, and immediately hangs up without even saying goodbye.

Mind you, maybe she was only saying that to get me off the phone. Maybe that was a tape she had on standby to play in the background just in case I rang. Jaysus. That’s another thing about being dumped and frozen out. Makes you incredibly paranoid.

Monday evening

The estate agent rings. The guy with the barely broken voice. ‘Bad news,’ he says. ‘You only have until Thursday to clear out.’

Three bleeding days?! ‘Can’t be done,’ I tell him. ‘I’ve been living here for two years, you can’t seriously expect me to pack up two years of my whole life in three lousy days?’

‘We feel it’s very generous of us even giving you until Thursday,’ he says, suddenly managing to sound all manly and assertive. ‘However, if you fail to meet this deadline…’

I don’t hang around to hear the end of the sentence.

Not in the form for threats right now.

Monday night

What’s killing me now is that there’s no one, absolutely no one to help me with the Herculean labour of trying to pack my entire life up in three miserable, measly days. Not a sinner. Sam? Yeah, right. Eva and Nathaniel? Don’t make me laugh. Emma would, I know. In fact she’d be around here right now organising all my stuff into neatly labelled cardboard boxes and making pots of tea for me, sainted angel that she is. But she’s away until at least the end of the month, so that’s out. There’s not a day goes by that I don’t hear from her though; always leaving cheery, positive messages and texts telling me that everything will work itself out and that I’ll be fine. Utter shite, of course, but I do appreciate the thought.

Still, it’s devastating to think that with only one exception, the very core of people who not two weeks ago I’d have counted on as my nearest and dearest, not only won’t lift a finger to help me, but won’t even return my calls. Unbelievable. Like so much in my life lately, you couldn’t make it up. Spend the rest of the evening wondering why they ever bothered hanging out with me in the first place. Can’t figure it. The one thing Sam, Nathaniel and Eva all have in common is money; vast, bottomless pits stuffed to the overflowing brim with it. And OK, so I kind of inveigled my way into their exclusive ‘members-only’ club by overstretching myself to keep up with them all losing all sense of reason in the process. That much, even in this highly distressed state, I’m fully able to grasp and accept. But here’s the real killer; I think the main attraction I held for all of them, and it stabs me to include Sam in this, is that I was ‘yer one off the telly’.

Fame opened doors for me, like Alice in Wonderland finding the low door in the wall that led to a magical world, except mine was full of five-star hotels, business-class flights, fabulous Michelin-starred restaurants; la dolce vita.Everything I’d ever wanted and never had, suddenly offered to me on a plate. But the very second the rug was pulled out from under me, that was it. As if I’d stumbled into the VIP room by mistake and it was only a matter of time before they showed me the door. I’ve been chasing a pot of gold that turned out to be all glitter and no substance and now have nothing to show for it apart from debts I’ll probably be paying off for the rest of my natural life.

Tuesday morning

Eventually dozed off with Sky News on in the background, then couldn’t believe it when I came to and it was 10.30 a.m. Ten bleeding thirty in the morning means my allocated clearing out time has now been whittled down to less than two days, so in a rare burst of energy I’m out of bed, down to the kitchen to make some heavy duty coffee, then back upstairs to start operation Attacking the Packing.

Yes, admittedly, I’ve left it a bit late in the day, I think, trying my best to be positive, but it’s quite do-able. I am after all, the girl who once had to do military boot camp à la Private Benjamin for the TV show and still survived to tell the tale. So if I can handle eighteen-hour days of intensive exercise in three degrees below freezing on an empty stomach, then a bit of light packing shouldn’t pose any problems, now should it?

The other thing in my favour is that I rented this house fully furnished, right down to all the kitchen appliances, the works. So all I really have to worry about packing is…well, you know, stuff.Clothes, shoes, books, DVDs, CDs, all that sort of thing.

A doddle really, when you think about it.

Twenty minutes later

Ohgodohgodohgodohgodohgod!Found a book which Sam gave me two birthdays ago. A first edition of Margaret Mitchell’s Gone with the Wind,my Desert Island favourite book of all time, ever. Inscribed with the words, ‘To Woodsie. I know we’ll always be together. Sx’ Sam always signs his name like that. Like he doesn’t actually have enough time to write all three letters of his name. Collapsed into yet more tears and this time, really thought that my heart would break.

Midday

OK, at this stage I’ve accepted that there’s just no way to get through this without getting distraught, so now the plan is to pack and howl simultaneously, with a box of Kleenex beside me at all times. Believe me, easier said than done.

I’m flinging make-up and face creams from my dressing table into a wheelie bag and doing quick mental calculations, working out that the La Prairie moisturiser and night cream alone would have set me back the guts of €400. Not including the Crème de la Mer eye cream which I spent no less than €165 on, used once, then broke out in spots.

Think I might have to have a lie down. Except there isn’t time to indulge in lambasting myself over the huge sums of cash I frittered away, is there? I’ll have nothing else to do but whinge about that when I’m stuck on a sofa in Whitehall, worrying about whether Maggie and Sharon will come down in the night and stab me in my sleep.

Right then. I head for my wardrobe and realise with horror that I have no fewer than twenty pairs of jeans…twenty! What in the name of Donatella Versace was I thinking? And I wouldn’t mind, but most of them look identical. Into my suitcases they go and when I run out of luggage space, I start flinging them and just about everything else into black plastic bin liners. Then I move on to all my evening dresses. Beautiful, so beautiful that all I want to do is prostrate myself on the ground before them and gape in awe at their beauteous beauty.

A thought; wonder if there’s some kind of second-hand swap shop where people could buy all this gear, that might generate a few quid for me? Or maybe I could flog it anonymously on eBay? Then, a miracle, I manage to find three tops, two skirts and a brand new winter coat, still with the tags on them. Money in the bank, I reckon. Because the shops will have to take them back, won’t they? So I’ll just get the cash back instead. Brilliant! I grab the phone which is lying on my bed and call the customer service department in Brown Thomas. No, the assistant says very politely, sorry but, no cash refunds are ever given, just store credit instead. Which leaves me with almost €980 worth of store credit and not enough money to take a taxi to Whitehall with all my stuff.

Another panic attack. Hadn’t thought of that. I haven’t a bean to my name; how exactly am I supposed to deal with the sheer logistics of hauling a mountain of suitcases and bin liners like a bag lady all the way to the Hammer House of Horror? Panic, panic, panic.