It helps to be 12,000 miles away from home when you have to think the hitherto unthinkable. You can get over the sleepless nights and through the boxes of tissues that, if you have any heart, you will need, and your employees won’t see the bags under your tear – stained eyes. “If you don’t bleed emotionally when you do this, then you are not human – that’s what I tell my managers,” said one of the chief executives of a FTSE 100 company with whom I shared all this.

Well, by the time I returned to the UK, I had survived the rapids of emotional turmoil and entered a calm sea of objectivity. I discussed my plan with my senior team, and took their advice. And it helped that halfway through my thought processes, I learned that I too had been sacked. The editor of The Field e-mailed me to let me know that after a 15-month stint as a columnist, he would not be requiring my services any more. The March issue, for which I had already filed, would be my last. No boxed of tissues for him, I am sure. And he didn’t even do me the courtesy of pretending it was because he needed to cut costs. No, I was too controversial. Me?

Well, the Lovely Lucinda is not too controversial. But sadly she is not essential either. I can no longer justify the luxury of having a PA when I am making cuts elsewhere. So, back to rescuing my own BlackBerry from cabs and running my own diary. I did it once and I am sure I will manage it again. But it didn’t make the decision any easier.