Alexandra Shulman

For 50 years, I’ve avoided wearing anything resembling formal tennis kit but in a rather lame way, I’ve been seduced by the current tenniscore fashion movement. Although tennis is my only sport, I’ve never owned whites, but a rather fabulous white – actually ecru – tennis ‘skort’ has arrived in the post. I only just prevented myself from adding a V-neck white sweater with navy trim to the order. Now I’ve just got to get on the court for the first time this year and stop with the shopping. Sadly, there is absolutely no resemblance at all between how I look in this hybrid of shorts and skirt to the gorgeous Zendaya, female star of the new Luca Guadagnino film Challengers. And it’s not only Zendaya in her little tennis dresses who hits the spot.

I’ve spent every evening of the past week in the midsummer gloaming, making the most of the longest days of the year. London has been en fête. The National Portrait Gallery’s long-awaited reopening was occasion for an enormous party, but I found it to be a weirdly disorientating experience. As an ex-trustee, for eight years I thought I knew the place pretty well. I could find my favourite portraits on autopilot, using a mental map of the different galleries. I had even worked with the team there on British Vogue’s 100th anniversary exhibition in 2016. But last week it was all change, as the whole place has been reconfigured by architect Jamie Fobert and director Nick Cullinan. They have created more natural light, new spaces and a different perspective on the collection.

The British weather is just like the worst boyfriend. The kind that keeps you in a state of permanent insecurity over their intentions. ‘See you later,’ they say blithely on departing in the morning, a comment that could equally well mean after lunch, or sometime in the second half of the year. Our programming for disappointment is so deep that even during the recent weeks of sunshine it’s been hard to feel completely safe in making future plans. Supper tomorrow in the garden? A picnic next weekend? Is that hubristic? Should we have a plan B? Of course when the days have turned out to be glorious, just as when the nightmare lover is at their most charming, the experience is hugely enhanced by the fact that we can’t rely upon it.