Tim is making his famous leek flan for dinner. It was the first dish he cooked for me, a few years ago. I had to look back – I knew the year was 2012, which was a year after we met for the first time, when he came to our second blog party, bringing Mig, and then invited us to his birthday party – which was fabulous.  I danced, I seem to remember…  Russell couldn’t come, but Mig and her husband Barney did and so did I – I was going to see my sister, I think, and the timing worked out nicely.

It turned out that it was another visit down to Wink when I saw him again and a momentous visit to her it was – the purpose was to go down to see our oldest friend Dodo for her hundredth birthday.  After leaving Wink, I spent the evening and night with Mig and Barney and then went on to lunch with Tim.  It was the 30th September 2013 but I wrote about it fairly briefly here.

And then it was nearly two years until I dropped in again and, when I did, he made Salad Niçoise, which was delicious.  Actually, it was by no means my fault that we hadn’t seen each other in the interim, because my emails (I hardly ever delete emails except for marketing or, of course, spam) show him making excuses on several occasions.  Hmmm.

The fifth meeting was at the end of September last year, and then he cooked lamb shanks.  And I stayed overnight – in his spare bedroom, of course, hem hem.  But something had certainly clicked between us and we were already more than just good friends.  And certainly, he is an exceedingly good cook.