1. A couple of weeks ago, I admired to glass peacock Christmas decorations in a shop. But I wasn't going straight home, so I didn't dare buy them for fear they would get broken. When I visited the Czech Republic a few years back, I bought several similar decorations, but reached home with several packets of glass shards. Today, I go into the shop and they are still there, so I buy them both and bear them home safely wrapped in tissue paper.
2. Nick takes me to a sale of military books in a hotel, bribing me with the promise of tea. While he searches for bargins in two green boxes, I perch on the windowseat and admire the grounds. I can see in through the window of another wing of the hotel, where a pair of hands is carefully laying a tea table with a white cloth and crisp napkins. I imagine it might be ours. When the time comes, we go back to the lounge and are led to that very table.
3. Halfway through tea, a lady in a primrose yellow frock with many layers of net and a very sparkly tiara walks in and starts playing Somewhere Over the Rainbow on the harp. I wonder if Nick has arranged it just to please me.
4. An extra beautiful thing -- The sisters of He-Who-Shall-Not-Be-Named and the Nameless Mother walk in and take a table near ours. The Nameless Mother has never met me, but recognises me from the HWSNBN photo library.
