Kind friends

Last night I had a fun supper party. We ate at a long table on the terrace outside the kitchen, it was a beautiful evening, one of those rare evenings when it was still warm at 10 o'clock.

I did not cook anything fom the Anna del Conte book I mentioned the other day - it is a visual feast and a joy to read and look at but I chose otherwise. We had jugs of icy cold Pimms, and a plateful of silvery anchovies, lumps of buffalo mozzarella, tiny little black olives, some seafood salad,halved sweet little piccolo tomatoes, and marinated artichoke hearts, all piled on a large plate, and which we speared to pop into our mouths as we drank our Pimms. Yum-yum. Then, leg of English lamb, smeared with a paste of anchovies, rosemary, garlic and butter, simply roasted. Pudding was home-made strawberry ice-cream, made with large intense dark red English strawberries, together with fresh raspberries. I put a huge bowl of the ice-cream on the table, and everyone just dug in and kept having seconds, and there wasn't a scrap left. All washed down with Cotes de provence rose. Who says the older generation do not know how to enjoy themselves?

I looked round the table - there were 7 of us, and I realised they were such good friends, and how kind they had been to me over the past 11 months. I wish I had taken a photograph of them all. It was perfect - white starched tablecloth, candle lamps, bowl of dark red roses in the middle, the murmur of conversation, and a quiet appreciation of the food. Kind friends enjoying themselves in my garden. Life is definitely tough at the moment, but there are moments when it is possible to see that life is a progression, and what went before was just that, and now life must go on. Before dinner, the husband of one of my friends came across the lane and put out the garden chairs for me and prepared the Pimms, and after dinner my friends cleared up and did the washing up for me. I am lucky to have friends such as these.

It is another beautiful day and my thoughts are still full of Violet - Billy is still disconsolate and stays close to me - Maud is still protecting him - animals are incredibly sensitive. We all snuggled up in bed together last night, and in the early hours I lay in bed, with the window wide open listening to the sounds of the countryside, and musing on my life and what the future holds. So many thoughts, so many regrets, so many hopes for the future.