When I passed through Edinburgh airport last month it was 50 years almost to the day since I had flown from there on my very first trip to Europe. It was a big deal at the time to the extent that my friend Graham came across from Kirkcaldy with my dad and me to enjoy the excitement of waving me off from the BEA office in George Street.

A lot has changed since then. BEA, which was almost the only user of the airport, has gone but has been replaced by more airlines than you can throw a stick at. The airport itself has grown like topsy. Air travel has become a banal everyday experience. And of course there is security; in 1959 no-one gave a monkey's who had packed your luggage. I'm not sure if my mum actually packed for me but she would certainly have kept an eye on it and ensured that I had a nice sharp pair of nail scissors and at least a pint of refreshing lemonade in my hand baggage.

I experienced a lot of culture shock on that trip, most of it delightful and all of it enlightening. I had never for instance seen lunch as more than a brief refuelling interlude between morning and afternoon. So I was amazed to find myself sitting in a garden on the shores of Lake Geneva in the sunshine enjoying a lunch that lasted all of a languid afternoon. Every so often I would sip my wine and stretch my arm upwards to pluck another ripe apricot from one of the trees shading our table.

The pleasure I took in that activity, or more accurately inactivity, has never faded and I spent just such an afternoon yesterday. After golf we had lunch with some Dutch friends. Their lovely garden was washed in warm sunshine as we chatted our way through a leisurely four hour lunch on their shady verandah. It was delightful. All that was missing was an overhead apricot.