Returning home

WE’VE BEEN out visiting. We’re driving home through the gleaming wintry twilight as the orange of the day melts into the blue of the night. We’re filled with a kind of inner glow ourselves, the one that comes from having passed a very pleasant couple of hours in the company of good friends.

It’s after five o’clock, though, and on our way to do a spot of shopping we get snarled up in homebound traffic. My Good Lady turns to me and tells me ignore the shopping. “We can manage until tomorrow,” she says. “Let’s eat out tonight, I don’t feel like starting to cook.”

So this is what we do. We stop at the Pub and have a bite of dinner there – a rather excellent steak and ale pie in my case – before going on home. I’m struck by the sight of the huge crescent moon, low in the sky, almost like something from a Samuel Palmer painting. We finally pull up in our drive and I switch off the car engine and we sit for a moment, both of us content with the afternoon and the evening. It’s been a good day.