Ambiance

Ambiance
It was pizza night as usual tonight, although with fewer participants than usual. In all, even with Daniel's son Kevyn (and apologies for spelling his name wrongly in my last posting) and his friends, there were only about ten of us. Nonetheless, it was a good evening.

Before that I had played boules with Daniel and ensemble in the afternoon and played badly; so it was a boules afternoon that I will happily forget. Afterwards, before going on to the pizza evening, I called in on Daniel for an aperitif and was greeted as always by his dog, Gillette, looking for dog treats. I had remembered to bring some in my pocket. What struck me was the ambiance in the house, with Kevyn's friends wandering in and out of the room where Daniel and I were drinking and talking, doing some work on their laptops, talking amongst themselves or into their mobile phones and so on. It reminded me of a time in my late 20s when I would often go on from the local pub in Merton, the Admiral Nelson, to friends' Keith and Janet's house to continue chatting, drink coffee and eat cheese and biscuits. Keith and Janet were half a generation ahead of me, friends of my family. Their adolescent children would bring home friends after their own evenings out and everybody would mix in happily together. I thought then that, if and when I had children, I would like my house to be the one in which the children chose to bring home their friends to congregate, after school, after an evening out or whatever. I think that children are very sensitive to atmosphere and will naturally veer towards a place where they can relax and be themselves without any unduly inhibitive pressure. It never happened for me, whether because of my divorce or for some other reason. But Daniel's house, with Kevyn's friends around, had that same easy, relaxed atmosphere, spanning the generations, that Keith and Janet's had had in my past.

Tomorrow I have invited friend Steve to come round and eat shellfish. His wife, Jo, has gone back to England to see her mother (who is a valiant 95, the epitome of Shakespeare's sans eyes, sans teeth, sans everything but game to go on) and Jo is not keen on shellfish. So Steve and I will take advantage of her temporary absence to have a shrimp fest. Jo is an excellent cook but Steve has occasional longings for some shrimp, crab, oysters, etc which can be assuaged during Jo's visits to see her mother.