A September Evening BBQ

Last night's BBQ was wonderful. While I hope I'm rather far off the grave, advancing years make each special event like that all the more pleasurable for me: at the very least my son is likely to fly the coop in three years' time post A-levels. The simple joy of sitting with my wife and son eating well on a warm evening is worth celebrating. Ours being a role reversal household I prepared the food and Ruth cooked it, with Joe's help: sausages, thin steaklets, scallops steamed with garlic in foil, mushrooms on skewers plus rapidly prepared hot veg stew (I overdid the cayenne) and warm guacamole. A half-bott of Beaujolais to wash it all down (that it is half-bottles these days is sadly another sign the first flush of youth is long gone). Hardly a mosquito to bother us and still warm, though pitch dark, when we came inside at about 8pm.

Though our neighbours have equally pleasant gardens - not overlooked, nicely leafy and quiet - nobody else had come up with the same idea. Ours was the lone smoke signal.