Nostalgic lunch...

Our friends are moving to France and we spent one last time with them at their home in Scotland on Sunday where we enjoyed a lovely lunch in their garden on their picnic bench because it was such a sunny and beautiful day and where else would you want to have lunch on such a nice day!

We drank some champagne and also blackcurrant juice which was served in a glass jug with ice and lime and it glistened in the sun.

Lunch was hot pastry sesame topped buns stuffed with cheeses and beetroot

Salad of avocado, peach, beetroot leaves, cherry tomatoes and onion

and home made Tiramisu for pudding, yummy!

After lunch we went on a nice walk in the woods around their home and visited the horses and donkey that live in the village they stay in which was so nice. They have such a lovely house, full of character and it even has a water wheel (no longer in use) at the front of it which Dexter loves to explore.....

Karen is such a lovely person and a genuinely fantastic cook. I met her 13 years ago on a course we were both on, and since then we have kept in touch. She is married to Keith who is Action Man and the two of them together remind me of The Incredibles, and I look forward to seeing them in France once they are settled!

As I think about them and the new adventure they will experience in moving to France, I muse over how much I aspire to be the incredible hostess and cook she is. She manages to effortlessly make a lunch into a banquet, a feast which fills her guests with the warmth, love and hospitality that she means it to and that is something I wish I could do too. Dexter loves her Chicken Soup with Pesto, a dish he has remembered her making about 4 years ago!

I love how Keith is so full of life and zest for embracing all that the outdoors has to offer and he pushes himself like no one other than Anders to be the very best he can be physically. He and Anders spend hours talking about challenging themselves physically and mentally. They get so excited at the prospect of achieving something they have set themselves a feat of completing, and I love and laugh at watching their excitement in their moments of comparing notes!

I love how as a couple Keith and Karen fit together so simply and wonderfully, sharing each others interests and yet having their own which make them so nice to know individually and yet as a couple they gel so perfectly, each having their place without which there would be something missing and I think that is wonderful to find, to see and to aspire to be like.

I wonder if that is how they see themselves, in the way that I know we often don't see ourselves how others see us, the good, the bad and the beautiful. I wonder what time will hold in store for my lovely family and am thankful that we really do love each other dearly and love to be in each others company. I am amazed that Dexter took some great photos the ones of us at the table and the one where he is reflected in the windows which he took with my new camera - at 8 years of age his talent never ceases to amaze me, and it makes me smile and reflect as I look over these photos.....