Cheers!

Mr PB,  whose initials in real life are JM, chose this rather splendid bottle of white wine with which to celebrate his birthday today. Apparently he shares his initials with the owner of the vineyard whose product this lovely wine is - it's one he's very proud of, and it's a small yield wine from old vines. That makes me sound very knowledgable, but really all I know is that it tastes absolutely lovely.

A birthday just after Christmas is always a tad trying - especially when we were just back at work - but apart from the raw dreichness of the weather we had rather a good day, culminating in the first choir rehearsal of the new term. We ended the rehearsal with Byrd's Ave Verum Corpus, which is one of the very first pieces I heard of the kind of music which was to dominate my life. That was 50 years ago, come to think of it, and Mr PB and I had just met.

Half a century. Good grief. Cheers!