I’ve finally managed to impress LT.  I have a way of launching into song, particularly when I think that no one is listening, but LT does and – bless him, poor man – he is remarkably tolerant.  Anyway, this evening’s effort made us wonder who wrote “I’ll be seeing you” (not now sure if that’s the name of the song, but either you know it or you don’t, so no need to explain).  Anyway, Tim suggested that Noël Coward wrote it?  And he was going to google it, but I said “Wait!” and scampered upstairs, as well as I could up the winding back stairs with a couple of glasses of wine in me and, quite remarkably, the book was just where I thought it was.

Darlings, The Noël Coward Song Book is a fine volume and LT is so pleased.  He’s clearly going to spend quite some time with it.  NC didn’t write the song in question, as it happens, but …

… LT and I are happy about the same things. And this reminds me of an occasion, nearly thirteen years ago.

I picked broad beans, cut asparagus and dug new potatoes, cooked them and served them with a whole baked fish, cooked simply with herbs, lemon and a dash of white wine.  It was perfect in a way that my mother and I completely understood.  Russell and Al, who was living here for a few months at the time, enjoyed it but they didn’t have the same feeling of perfect accord as Mummy would have had with me.  She’d died a couple of months earlier and that was when I realised that – not in every way, not by any means, but in that and certain others – we understood without words.

As so often, I didn’t know what I was going to write when I started.  But I keep having a similar experience and so does Tim, in regard to each other.

I’m not even being sentimental.  Because we all know what a hard-bitten old cynic I am.  I just know when something is right.