Bittersweet

AS I WRITE, the outside world dons a silent, white mantle of snow.

Normally, this shouldn’t bother me at all, but we’re expecting company tonight. We’ve got the menu planned, and the shopping’s all done. We’re about to prepare a thick crab soup for starters, then a duck confit with parliament potatoes, and for dessert, one of My Good Lady’s delightful red cherry cheesecakes. We’re under starter’s orders, ready to go – and of course, this is when it starts to snow for the first time in about five years. Our friends are driving down from a village in Cumbria where we used to live – not a journey to be undertaken when the weather is iffy. All we can do, I suppose, is wait until the very last minute, and if the snow doesn’t clear, give them a call and ask what’s best to do.

Meanwhile, I’m continuing to scan my photo slides, and I’m now in the midst of that miscellany of people pictures that don’t quite fit in any other category of time and place. And I’m struck by the depressing realisation of how many of our family, friends and colleagues have died over the last few years. While I can look back on happy memories with a smile, I also get the sad awareness that I shall never see some of these people again. Whoever coined the word “bittersweet” was right on the mark.