I return to my old church in the City of London for a memorial service for a friend. Having been let down by the Tube, I am full of dark thoughts about the Circle Line when, out of breath, I finally arrive, find my place and stand for the first hymn. The second verse contains a line with my friend's surname in it. Whenever this used to occur I would catch his eye across the church, raise an eyebrow and nod. Distracted by the bustle of the day, as the line comes along I look up and search for him.

A few days earlier I read a story about a French writer and registered there was someone I particularly wanted to share it with before remembering that the friend — a wonderful Francophile Persian writer — has been dead for several years. People often talk of the "gap" that a death leaves, but really it is a set of gaps. The physical one is only the earliest and most obvious.

The New Year break is the best period for which to store up promising books. I peaked early, however, and have already absorbed one from my pile. John Saumarez Smith, known to bibliophiles for his advice from the Heywood Hill and Maggs Bros bookshops, has edited the correspondence of Anthony Powell and Robert Vanderbilt. Its title is taken from one of Vanderbilt's letters, in which he describes his correspondent's novels as containing a characteristic he summarises as "the acceptance of absurdity". It is a wonderful phrase and sends me straight back to core Powell.

I recently bought a small wood-burner to go into the tiny, dilapidated house miles from London which, after much work, I can finally live — and read — in. Suddenly the New Year seems fully planned for and complete.