Another week another concert or two and en route a pleasant dinner with friends in Morningside marred only by too generous a hand on the whisky bottle from the host and too willing a mouth from the guest.

That led to skipping an engagement the following evening but every cloud and so on because it meant I was on hand to help sort out a ticketing problem that's too complicated to explain here.  But all is well that ended well.

And the week ended well lunching in Queen Charlotte Street with Claire newly returned from Australia. No whisky, nor even wine but super soup and capital coffee.

And the weekend started well with blue skies, sunshine and mild verging on warm air on my arrival in Milan.

In wandering around near my hotel I went into a park where there was a wee bit of a Christmas fair.  I snapped this seasonal variation on what in my youth we called the scenic railway.

A couple of days later I am lunching in the sunshine in the port of Genoa.  Who said retirement would be easy?