After yesterday, I’m trying to come to terms with how my life has lurched in a different direction to the one I’d foreseen this time last year. So I thought it might be interesting to have a guess at where I’m heading next.

Which means I was easily lured by the gaudy sign above a Nolita doorway reading: ‘Psychic Naomi: Solve all problems’. When I buzzed the apartment, a gruff male voice barked back – and I thought that perhaps Naomi was having a bad day too.

The voice belonged to a bearded man who introduced himself as ‘Al… er… Professor’ as he opened the door. I assumed the Prof – who was decked in a Boston baseball cap and sandals and had Days of Our Lives or some such horror blasting out of the TV – had been sent to let me in. But there was no sight of Ms. Naomi – and The Prof hastily explained he was her stand in tonight.

He left Days of Our Lives on the box and ushered me into a teeny tiny room, explaining that a tarot card reading would be $30. I asked him why, if that was the case, the sign outside said $25, and he mumbled that he must have been mistaken.

Then we got to work. I shuffled the pack of cards and cut them into three piles, before stacking them again. Then the Prof began turning them over in batches of threes, gently telling me about my future and hinting at my past.

I’ve always been hugely skeptical of things like this, and he didn’t do much to assuage my doubts. There were numerous statements that could have applied to many people (‘Someone in your life has died recently of something’, ‘Your parents are good people’), somethings he got outright wrong (‘You’re a God-loving woman,’ ‘Someone has asked you out for dinner recently’… ha) and some things really didn’t take that much guessing (‘You have travelled from another land’).

But I can see its allure. Even though I was hugely doubtful, when he said things I wanted to hear, they really did make me feel better and I wanted to believe them. Who doesn’t want to be told that they’ll be successful at work, popular at play, happily married with children (two boys and a girl), with a proposal less that two years away? And I never considered myself likely to work in TV, but I can’t fight fate, so I may as well succumb to success.

After the reading, the Prof told me that he’s been working as a psychic since he was 15, ever since he learned he had been born with the gift. He encouraged me to return so he could teach me more about my future with crystals, palm readings… and no doubt hefty bills.

I’m not convinced, but I think he did work some magic. It shouldn’t have taken $25 to remind me, but it is exciting that there are all these prospects just around the corner, especially here in New York.