Wednesday, 7 March 2007

Birthday honours

For my birthday last Saturday I was given a splendid dinner at a country restaurant, and then a night at a delightful farmhouse just below the ridge of the South Downs, in as remote a spot as it is possible to find in the densely populated south-east of England; this was the view from our bedroom window.

(The area is of intellectual as well as pastoral interest: Glyndebourne is nearby, and so is Charleston, the country home of a famous bunch of posturing ninnies called the Bloomsbury Group who stayed there doing their literary/artistic thing, and each other, during and after the First World War.)

It had also been arranged by a friend in Holy Orders that the day should be marked by a full eclipse of the moon in my honour. Sadly, the dinner and the Sancerre with the main course, followed by the Monbazillac with the torte, caused a great exposition of sleep to come upon us so that we saw only the earlier stages and not the orange bit.


And which birthday was it? Suffice it to say that one of my birthday cards featured photographs of an appropriate number of trombones.

3 comments:

Gumby said...

The orange bit was overrated.
Many happy returns.
Lynn

Anonymous said...

After some months of disaster caused by invisible invaders in my computer, I have finally come round to reading OMF again. Birthday congratulations, Tony. I shall remember the date as you kindly share it with my grandson, now 3 years old.

Best wishes, Arthur

Anonymous said...

Nice to hear from you Arthur. I had feared that the disparaging remarks about Western Australia in a comment I made on Feb 24th 2005 had offended you.
Anyway, all the best to you both.